


Pretty

by penceyprat



Category: Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is..., The Used
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Big Gay Bandom Highschool AU, Catholic, Catholic School, Character Death, Crossdresser Gerard, Crossdressing, Drug Addiction, Everyone's gay, F/F, F/M, Gay Male Character, Lesbian Character, M/M, Or LGBT+, Student Frank, Suicide Attempt, Teenagers, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-13 17:17:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 48
Words: 266,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2158794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penceyprat/pseuds/penceyprat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank is the only gay guy he knows, stuck in the rather restricting and conservative world of Catholic school with his two best friends and their Catholic upbringings, where his daily adrenaline hits come from smoking behind the art block with Jamia, who he reckons is on her path to being the next Lindsay Lohan.</p>
<p>But then, things really do change, because perhaps Jamia's matchmaking abilities aren't quite as shitty as Frank reckons, and perhaps this 'social gathering' he's dragged along to, does have some benefit to him after all.</p>
<p>And perhaps, Frank will draw a face to the name of Gerard - Mikey's older brother, who really despite living in the same town, is worlds away from the reality Frank's stuck in. And on the subject of the unlikely, will Mikey ever finally figure out that Alicia Simmons really doesn't give a fuck about croquet?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She Doesn't Even Like Croquet

"Literally everyone knows you only joined the croquet team because you want to impress Alicia Simmons, Mikey." Ray came to point out the obvious, disheartening Mikey's mallet wielding form to a visible extent.

Mikey Way threw a death glare in Ray's direction, coming to hold the mallet in a more weapon like manner, which would have been threatening if Mikey wasn't a scrawny kid with glasses, hair sticking up in every direction, and perfectly polished superhero figurines laid out on his bedroom windowsill in alphabetical order.

"Just saying, dude." Ray shrugged, his eyes drifting downwards in what anyone would presume to be guilt.

Ray Toro was quite probably the kindest dude you'd ever meet, and intending to insult anyone, even someone with the arrogance of Mikey Way, was in no way in his intentions. He ran a hand through his afro, before pulling his eyes back up to meet Mikey's.

"Who says I want to impress Alicia Simmons?" Mikey's cheeks flushed in a gradient like manner, going through just about every shade of red on the colour wheel before settling upon a reddish beetroot colour that really didn't complaint his shockingly pale skin.

"Just about everyone." Ray was always one for the truth, and he did his best not to offend anyone with it, but with some things, reactions were inevitable.

Ray was of course expecting some reaction from his words after having known Mikey for a good few years now, but what he was not expecting was for his best friend to go through a full blown hissy fit.

"So now you tell me that everyone's gossiping about me behind my back and that you've joined them, huh? What a great fucking friend are you?" Mikey slammed his croquet mallet to down, the wooden handle colliding with the dampened soil reaching up through the patchy grass of the Toro family's backyard, the thud resonating from the impact threw Frank back to consciousness.

Frank had been leaning against the fence about a metre away from Mikey and the wicket he'd struggled to set up beside Ray. As much as the seventeen year old had tried to show interest in the affairs of his best friends, even if they were the girl troubles of Mikey Way, Frank had resorted to laying back and basking in what little sun he could get, and had in fact nearly dozed off before Mikey's unexpected case of generally uncalled for mallet abuse woke him up.

"Mikey you could smash that mallet - I'd be careful." Ray pointed out in a very maternal fashion that wasn't exactly unexpected from someone of his nature, gesturing towards the mallet, which lay wedged into the ground at an odd angle. He kept his distance from the thing though, because he knew Mikey wouldn't hesitate to whack him over the head with the thing if he even went as far as to touch it.

"Who cares about the freaking mallet?" Mikey exclaimed, his agitated nature now becoming aware to Frank, who was regretting having woken up entirely.

Frank was an odd kind of guy, he wasn't particularly noticed in school at all, but unlike Mikey, he was completely fine with that, and not for the same goodhearted reasons as Ray. Frank simply had other things on his mind; as his friends were fussing over Alicia Simmons and croquet, Frank was considering just how his mum would react when he came home tomorrow with the lip piercing he'd booked an appointment for yesterday.

She hadn't reacted particularly badly to the nose ringed that now adorned his face, but then again she hadn't loved it either. Mrs Iero wasn't a conservative kind of mother like Mrs Toro and Mrs Way, she was more laid back and Frank had come to assume this was from the seven ex husbands she'd had that had brought forth her general disregard for typical family values and structure.

In Frank's mind, this was a good thing - he'd definitely have a lip ring than some shitty stepfather any day.

He did mind just a little that he didn't have a clue as to whom his father actually was, especially when both of his best friends had happily married parents and even siblings at that. It was just Frank and his mum at home, and hopefully soon to be the dog she'd promised to buy him if he passed his exams, however with all the time Mikey was forcing the three of them to waste staying behind at netball practices in order just to catch a vague glance of Alicia Simmons in a mini skirt, Frank was pretty sure he'd been getting D grades at best.

An exam on Alicia Simmons' appearance and odd quirks, however he'd get an A* on that - he didn't even have to study for that: Mikey practically reeled off information about the girl as if he was paid to do so. He was obsessed.

Frank didn't even know why Mikey was bothering with all this croquet shit, yeah Alicia liked netball, but he didn't reckon she'd even heard of croquet before Mikey would inevitably involve her in an in-depth discussion about the sport- well, that was if he even made the team, and Frank hadn't been even watching him practice, but Mikey was the skinniest, least sportiest guy he knew, so it didn't take much to know that the possibility of Mikey Way ever being accepted onto a school sport's team was just about as likely as Frank passing his maths exam this year.

"Mikey." Frank called out, getting the attention of his best friend from where he stood against the fence of this shockingly tiny backyard.

"What do you want? You're not even paying any attention, Frank?" He responded with an angered tone.

"If you want to date Alicia Simmons, and I'm not going to lie to you here - you're Mikey Way, the reality of this is that it's unlikely-"

"I don't care whether it's likely or impossible or whatever, I just care about getting on the goddamn croquet team." He exclaimed, his words over exaggerated for effect, but no one batted an eyelash as that was generally the given with Mikey.

"You don't even like croquet." Ray couldn't help but point out, resorting to salvaging Mikey's abandoned croquet mallet himself.

"Neither does Alicia." Frank added, trying not to laugh at Mikey's completely astounded reaction.

"Croquet's a sport - she likes sport, doesn't she? Why are girls so confusing?" Mikey shook his head, giving up and sitting down on the grass, his knees pulled up to his chest.

"I'd tell you just to be yourself but your interests include comic books from ten years ago, britpop no one's ever heard of, stalking girls, and apparently... croquet." Frank offered, removing himself from the fence he was leaned against and joining Mikey on the grass.

"So you think I should drop the croquet?" He asked, catching Frank's gaze, before the dark haired boy turned his attention elsewhere.

"Dude I think you should just drop obsessing over girls to the extent that it's creepy." Frank let out a laugh.

"So what am I supposed to do with this then?" Ray asked, holding up the mallet in one hand and the wicket in the other.

"I don't know." Mikey shrugged, "give them to your dad or something - he likes croquet, doesn't he?"

"Cricket. He likes cricket." Ray corrected him, shaking his head, and propping the croquet equipment up against the apple tree that his mum had grown to hate for its apparent reluctance to produce any fruit whatsoever at all, before joining his best friends were they sat beside the cluster of overgrown bushes.

"See, you'd be really shitty jock, Mikey." Frank pointed out, pulling his fingerless, skeleton print gloves back down where they'd been riding up his fingers, and taking note that his black nail polish was chipping and that he should take the time to repaint it tonight. "Even I know the difference between croquet and cricket."

"Ugh..." He sighed out, kicking the dirt with the heel of his sneakers, "I'm fed up with girls, seriously."

"You say that for now, but by Monday it'll be 'Alicia, Alicia, Alicia' all over again." Ray meet Mikey's gaze, receiving a skeptical look in return. "You know it's true, Mikey."

"I wish I could just ignore the female species entirely, they're messing with my head, with their boobs, and hips, and curves, and hair, and miniskirts, and goddamn netball practices. But you just can't do that, can you?" Mikey let out an agitated groan, leaning his back a little, but stopping himself before he fell into the bush behind him.

"You can." Frank added, turning his head away, knowing what he was about to touch upon wouldn't exactly be a welcome subject with Mikey Way and his all Catholic family and upbringing. "It's called being gay."

Frank was surprised Mikey didn't react and immediately insult him or something of the like, but the silence he was faced with from both Mikey and Ray was quite possibly worse. Honestly, Frank was just glad that he had the non-Catholic mother, leaving his queer ass to at least have the hope of being accepted at home, because things definitely weren't looking good between his friends.

God forbid Frank ever got a boyfriend; he may as well just renounce his friends in the process, because damn they would not be okay with it. Luckily for him, Frank really hadn't had any success in the dating department from either gender since first grade, so he could push that worry aside and leave himself to deal with it when he needed to.

Frank had known he was gay pretty much ever since Mikey started going on about girls like Alicia Simmons and dragging him into extravagant schemes in order to get their attention, which was pretty much day one of Freshman year, when the two of them first met.

Frank and Mikey had always shared their love for comics and bonded over their general dorkiness and odd nature, and it didn't take long before Ray with far too much hair and the AC/DC shirt to find not just a mutual music taste but a mutual friendship, or at least tolerance with each other.

The thing Frank did share with Mikey and Ray was their interest in the female gender; he didn't care for breasts, or curves, or sneaking into netball practices, and for a while Frank was even beginning to think he was asexual, which perhaps would have been easier for him once he'd actually explained what the hell that was.

But then that all changed when Frank went with Mikey to see The Smiths live. Initially, Frank hadn't been at all keen upon the idea, not even having heard of the band until Mikey gave him a batman comic in order for him to come with him. 

And oh god, not only did Frank fall in love with their music but he fell in love with Morrissey a little himself, and Frank reckons that almost kick-started his sexual attractions, because before then Frank had just thought he was a little weird, and in fact hadn't even considered that he should be trying to get hard over men than the porn Mikey was insisting he kept so his very Catholic mother did find in his room and quite possibly crucify him right then and there.

At first Frank was even so glad he could understand all these feelings Mikey had been rambling on about, even if it wasn’t for the same gender, but things just got messy when his attractions transitioned from frontman of the British rock band to 'real guys'.

When Frank started blushing over guys he saw in the hallways at school, that was really when things went a little shitty, because that was really confusing all locked up in his own head, especially when he knew he could never even fathom telling his friends about these feelings. All he could really say was thank the God he didn't believe in for Jamia fucking Nestor.

"What the fuck Frank?" Mikey finally said, his words cutting the strings that kept his head afloat and pulling him very brutally back down to earth. "Like I'm ever going to be a faggot."

Frank just shrugged, aiming on keeping his mouth shut before he blurted out something that would really ensure he'd be bullied for just about the rest of his life.

"Isn't your brother gay?" Ray asked, moving the conversation on, but really not in the direction Frank wanted him to. At least the attention wasn't on him any longer.

"What the hell, man?" Mikey exclaimed, blushing just a little - he always got nervous when people spoke about his brother. "Why should I care about him when he barely even sets foot in his own home for an hour a week? Where did you even get that from any way?"

Ray shrugged, trying his best as not to infuriate Mikey further. "I don't know, I just heard it, I guess."

"Yeah, just because he's a fag, doesn't mean I am." Mikey snapped, remaining on the defensive; Gerard was always a touchy subject for him. The boy ranted about this elusive big brother Gerard that no one had ever actually met as if he was the air he breathed, but whenever anyone else brought him up in conversation that was an entirely different story.

Frank knew he shouldn't, but honestly if this big brother Gerard was gay, then he thought he'd quite like to meet him. Maybe to not entirely to get off with him, but just because they went to a Catholic school and Frank Iero's the only actual gay dude he knows.

And Frank reckons that dating himself would be kind of messed up.

-

"Fuck." Frank sighed, clicking at his lighter furiously, the damn thing failing to light itself at all, functioning just as well as Mikey when Alicia walks with a metre of him.

"Work. You. Piece. Of. Fucking. Shit." Frank exclaimed between clicks, before eventually giving up and going to throw the thing against the concrete, but he doesn't particularly want the teachers to find this smoking spot, because he'd been through a few by now and the art block was kind of peaceful, because none of the art teachers actually wanted to be teachers, and were more of just extravagant, big headed, pretentious, artist fucks, and if they saw you smoking they'd be more likely to sketch you than report you.

He eventually settled for aggressively shoving it in his jeans pocket and glaring at the ground with a rather stony face expression that he thought expressed his inner anger and torment sufficiently.

"I'm guessing you want to use mine?" Jamia Nestor chirped in, turning round the corner of the block, noticing Frank without cigarette and knowing that it was either a sign of demon possession or simply a case of a faulty lighter.

"I was wondering when you were going to turn up." He mumbled, grabbing the lighter from her outstretched and lighting his cigarette before she could even get hers out.

He thought it'd be polite to offer her a smoke in return, but this was his last packet and after the dodgy off license ran by an old man with a beer belly who barely even spoke English, let alone knew what an I.D. was, got shut down, he'd been having a certain difficulty in buying cigarettes, or getting people to buy them for him, especially when the only person that even knew he smoked was Jamia who was in fact very much in the same situation.

Frank knew Ray had an older brother that bought beer for younger kids, but he'd most definitely tell Ray if Frank asked him to get smokes for him, and then Ray would get all motherly on him, lecturing him about the health risks and lung cancer and what not, and then Mikey would find out and he'd probably get his parents to exorcise him or something.

"I do have better things to do than sit here and fuck over my lungs with you, Frank." She noted, lighting her own cigarette, putting her lighter back in her bag as she held the cigarette between her teeth.

"Yes, but where else would you hear fascinating anecdotes about people I hate and my personal life?" Frank counteracted, taking a drag of nicotine mid sentence.

"Ryan Ross." She answered, of course having an answer to everything. "He knows just about everything."

"Does he now?" Frank asked, briefly amused by her words, after all, they were most certainly preferable to whatever shit Mikey was spewing out right now, leaving him to feel just a little guilty that he'd left Ray to deal with it on his own. "Does he know who Mikey Way likes, though?"

"I don't think he does, Frank, I don't think he does." She turned her head in my direction, her face adorned with a smirk.

"Does he not? Unfortunate, don't you think?" Frank smirked, smoking as if he was oblivious to Jamia's sudden interest in the subject of conversation.

"I'll give you a packet if you tell me."

"Done." Frank announced before he could even breathe, catching the packet she tossed him and pocketing it instantly, almost as if it could disintegrate in his bare hands. "How are you even getting these after the shop's closed down?" He asked.

"Ray Toro's brother." She replied casually.

"Oh fuck off." Frank let out a sigh. "I'm pretty much screwed then, aren't I?"

"Unless you can find a method in which to severely blackmail either Toro brother, then yes." She smirked, turning her head around the corner momentarily to ensure that the two of them were alone. "Now tell me you fuck."

"Alicia Simmons." Frank reckoned that selling out his friends secrets for a packet of dodgy, illegally acquired cigarettes was not morally okay, but Jamia wasn't going to tell, at least not unless blackmailed or bribed significantly well, so he figured he was good for now. Well, Mikey did kind of deserve it for going on about it so much.

"You're kidding me?" She exclaimed, spluttering and coughing as she choked on cigarette smoke.

"It's kind of obvious actually." Frank admitted, cursing as he got to the end of his cigarette, but with his newly acquired packet he didn't hesitate to push aside the wellbeing of his respiratory system and light another. "He started learning croquet, because he thinks she's going to notice him if he's on a sport's team."

Jamia rolled her eyes at that, laughing like a maniac. "She's only on the netball team because her mum reckons it's going to look good on her college application."

"You're kidding me?" Frank's eyes widened in response, barely able to believe it, and in fact considering not even informing Mikey of this. "Oh my god."

"I don't understand why you're friends with him, he's an absolute asshole, seriously." She finished her cigarette, but seemed to give a damn about not getting lung cancer as she stumped it out in the grass and turned to Frank instead of lighting another.

"It's not like I have a wide variety of options when it comes to the friends department, is it?" Frank admitted, knowing all too well that his two best friends weren't really his type of people, but they had some common interests and they put up with each other, so he guessed that'd do.

"You have me." She offered, winking a little.

Jamia Nestor was the kind of girl that didn't really give a fuck and hung out with bitchy girls simply to discover their secrets and ruin their lives. She was kind of like Lindsey Lohan, except without the drugs. Although she'd been hanging around with some pretty shady people lately so Frank reckoned he'd just have to wait and see.

Frank didn't particularly have anything against drug addicts, but it really wasn't for him, considering that he could barely supply himself with cigarettes and that his smokes would be shock enough to his friends, let alone a heroin addiction. Mikey would probably pass out instantly at the mention of that.

"Mikey hates you." Frank supplied her with what she knew too well.

"Good for him." She laughed. People like Jamia really couldn't careless about people like Mikey Way, and people like Jamia were unfortunately in Mikey's case, people like Alicia.

"I hate how homophobic he is though." Frank admitted, really glad that there was someone he could talk to about his sexuality even if it was the girl he was destined to get lung cancer with. "I made a little fucking joke that fit in conversation and then he just went silent and stared at me as if I'd just told him I was in love with him."

"He's arrogant enough to assume you would be." She noted, and he didn't correct her, because even Frank knew that this wasn't far from the truth.

"I'm never going to be myself around him and that really sucks." Frank sighed, finishing his second cigarette and stumping it out, Jamia tossing him a stern glance before he could light a third.

"Did I tell you about this girl I met on Saturday?" She asked, her face igniting instantly.

"What the Saturday I spend watching Mikey get stroppy over croquet in Ray Toro's backyard? While you spent it getting some cool lesbian hook ups? Seriously can you ask these gay girls if they know any gay guys because I am driving myself crazy here?" Frank reckoned that asking Jamia to play matchmaker really wasn't the best of ideas but he was getting pretty desperate by now and evidently so.

"Yeah, actually this is good news for you. She invited me to this party thing, I don't know, she called it a 'social gathering', with her friends and the idea is that if I meet them then she'll go down on me." Frank tried his best not to imagine his lung cancer buddy getting licked out, but with a mind like his it really was proving difficult, and right now his dick was pretty much just thanking him he was gay because otherwise he'd have a situation that he really didn't want to have to deal with right now.

"How is this at all good news for me?" Frank asked, trying not to sound too heartless in the process, but most likely failing in the matter entirely.

"She has friends, male friends, perhaps gay male friends. And I want you to go with me, because they're older than us and I don't want to be the youngest." She admitted, chuckling a little.

"I don't know whether to insult you or thank you, Jesus fuck, when is this?" Frank exclaimed, praying to any God he didn't believe in that he'd actually meet a gay guy, and perhaps even an attractive one at that.

"Tomorrow night, you better be able to come." 

"I hope I'll come." Frank didn't hesitate to make a fucking stupid joke.

"Oh fuck off, I hope he makes out with and tears that lip ring right off your fucking face in the process." She commented, rolling her eyes and of course as usual making sure that her threats had originality.

"That'd make my mum happy at the very least."

-

"Frank, Mrs Way invited us over for dinner if you want to go?" Mrs Iero called out as Frank slammed the front door behind him, kicking his sneakers off onto the doormat, and making his way into the kitchen where his mum was making herself a coffee.

"I can't take my lip ring out or it's going to heal up, and she'll want to exorcise me if she sees me with it in, you know that." Frank was glad to for once actually have a decent excuse as to not go over and eat in a highly Catholic household that would make him say grace, ask him awkward questions and then get all bitchy about his vegetarianism.

"Mrs Way is a lovely lady-" His mum began; her eyebrows raised just a little as she examined Frank's particularly scruffy form.

"She's convinced she's the Virgin Mary despite having two children, is what you mean." Frank corrected, slumping down in the sofa across the room and putting his feet up on the table in a manner that'd be sure to piss his mum off, but not quite enough for her to demand he stopped it. Anyway it was comfy.

"One child remember. The eldest isn't Christian, and is therefore does not exist." She added, smirking to herself just a little as got her coffee and joined her son on the sofa.

"I heard he's gay as well." Frank offered, discreetly trying to gauge his mother's reaction to homosexuality on a whole.

"She won't be pleased about that." Mrs Iero simply commented, keeping her opinions to herself, which was rather unfortunate for Frank.

"Mikey isn't either. He's either going on about girls or ranting about his brother." Frank exclaimed, remembering the guilt from leaving Mikey to Ray at school today and made a mental note to text him later.

"You've got to feel sorry for his brother though, especially if all his family hate him for just being who he is."

"I heard he stays over at his friend's house pretty much every night." He continued to real off information that had been provided to him amidst one of Mikey's daily rants.

"Poor guy." She sighed, "poor guy. I hope you know that no matter who you are I'll always accept you." She pulled Frank into her side in an embarrassing mum hug that he would have avoided if he had the energy.

"Good." Frank sighed, considering whether he should tell her or not. It'd definitely take a weight off his shoulders for one thing.

"Because?" She urged him on, smirking just a little.

"What?" He flushed a horrible shade of red.

"Oh come on, Frankie. You've never shown interest in a girl at all."

"Mum-" He choked out, eyes practically popping from their sockets. She met him with a skeptical, typical mum kind of look. "Alright, I'm gay."

She grinned, pulling him closer to her side. "Boyfriend?" And that was when Frank had really had enough.

"No, Jesus, I go to a Catholic school. I don't know any gay guys." Frank expressed, rolling his eyes and generally blushing furiously.

"You know, I think we should find out more about Mikey's older brother, don't you think, Frankie?"

-


	2. Frank Iero's Cumslut Jeans

"Looking at Alicia again, are we?" Came the teasing voice of Pete Wentz, his brown eyes glinting as a spark of mischief darted across them.

"Fuck off." Mikey snapped in response, yawning a little - he was far too tired for this. Apparently spending all your afternoon chatting to Alicia on MSN wasn't the best of ideas when it caused you to have to pile in all the work due tomorrow between the hours of midnight and three am, which Mikey had rather brutally discovered, were not the hours when his brain worked this best.

Pete simply smirked in response, leaning back against the wire railings of the netball pitch, choosing in a manner very typical of him to spend his lunchtime pissing Mikey Way off. He just liked annoying him, of course, and in Pete's opinion it really was fucking stupid as to just how lovestruck he was with Alicia, who couldn't even give a crap about him.

Mikey sighed getting up from where he was sat underneath the bleachers and got up to stand beside Pete, who had been blocking his view of Alicia Simmons in a miniskirt- the netball game.

"Where are Toro and Iero?" Pete asked, amused to see Mikey Way alone for once - it wasn't often he actually got to have a conversation/argument with the guy without one of his friends, usually Ray Toro, from intervening and telling them to act maturely in the situation or whatever the hell else bullshit he could reel off at that moment in time.

"Ray's got some library ambassador meeting - why he ever signed up for that I really do not know. I think his mum just wants him to get extra credits for university or whatever, and I don't mean to be rude here, but I'm not gonna lie: he's dogshit at math, he's going to have to cheat to pass his math exams, but he's Ray Toro so of course he's never going to cheat is he? Ridiculous if you ask me." Mikey reeled off in an amusingly animated manner, or so Pete thought, his eyebrows perking up and the corners of his lips twisting up into a smirk as he watched the way Mikey gestured with his hands as he spoke, despite the fact his eyes never once left Alicia Simmons.

Pete reckoned Mikey would have been an alright guy if he wasn't so stalkerishly girl obsessed. Pete had gotten around a little, and as far as he knew Mikey Way was still a virgin - not that he'd extensively researched the matter or anything, of course - and he never was this weird around girls at all. It wasn't even awkward weird; in Mikey's case it was just crazy weird. Pete sometimes thought that Mikey Way might need psychological help, but what he knew for certain was that he wasn't going to be the one to give it to him.

"Ah, but Ray's got all these geeky nerdy little boffin bookworm friends now he's a library thingyamawotsit, and they'll all have messed up mothers that starve them if they don't get straight As or something, so they'll help Ray at math, and you'll, after Ray's gone off to boffin land, you'll be friendless, Mikey Way." Mikey peeled his gaze up send Pete the deadliest glare he could muster. "Don't worry though, you'll always have me."

"I really do hate you, Pete." Mikey spat, his eyes returning to Alicia within moments; he reckoned that Pete Wentz was not worth his time, however Alicia Simmons' ass, that was. "I really do."

"My pleasure." Pete grinned, mock bowing, just to piss Mikey off even further. "I would try and go rescue Ray from his new best friends though, before he gets any ideas or something, like man, what if they get to the level of friendships were their mums go out on coffee mornings and bitch about their children, husbands, and neighbours."

"Dude, no one actually does that." Mikey said, blissfully unaware of the fact that Mrs Way and Mrs Toro were currently in at the Way residence, sipping tea, discussing their children and perhaps even contemplating making a fruit cake that Mikey would have to pretend not to throw up as he ate, that is if Mrs Toro's 'sprained ankle' ever stopped playing up. Even Mrs Way reckoned that Mrs Toro was just lazy.

"Is your life a soap opera- judging by just how arrogant you, it's probably true, but..." He peered over at Pete, cocking his head up slightly. "If you were on a TV soap opera, and I was the director, I'd be firing the make up department, because you still look ugly as shit."

"At least I have friends, Way." Pete said with a smirk, following Mikey's gaze back to Alicia Simmons' ass. "And at least I'm not ignorant enough to never realise when someone is never going to date me."

"You're single, Pete. Shut up." Mikey honestly didn't have a clue if Pete was single or not, but he knew the guy was annoying - that was for sure, and he very much doubted that any girl, no matter how demented could put up with him for more than forty minutes at a maximum.

"I seriously would consider rescuing Toro from the mob of straight A, half starved, mostly likely emotionally abused, boffin kids - with math answers and possibly even cheat sheets." Mikey's gaze lifted at the mention of the word cheat.

"Not that he'd ever use a cheat sheet." The both of them spurted out at that same time, strangely in sync. Mikey tossed Pete a weird whilst Pete stifled a fit of laughter, having been intending to mock Mikey in the first place, and ending up doing a far better job of it than he could have ever imagined.

"I'm not rescuing Ray from the Asians, he'll be fine." Mikey rolled his eyes, casually reeling off a more than mildly racist remark, having been far too accustomed to that kind of attitude at home from both Mr and Mrs Way.

"Racist." Pete remarked, eyebrows raised, knowing that Mikey had messed up Catholic parents, rendering him not all that surprised. He reckoned that minus the parents Mikey wouldn't nearly be such an asshole.

"I'm like a quarter Italian, I can't possibly be racist." Mikey answered with another sarcastic remark, leaving Pete to amuse himself with just how weirdly similar the two of them were - he'd even reckon that they could be friends if Mikey Way wasn't such a massive pile of dicks. He'd heard that the guy was massively homophobic, and he really wasn't in the mood to rest that theory out... or was he?

"Heard you hate fags though." He rolled the words off his tongue casually, and at the mention of the word 'fag', Mikey turned away from Alicia fully, even directly pointing his body at Pete for the first time today, which in Pete's head was pretty self-explanatory - the dude was either a massive homophobe, or gay himself, or even both, which seems to be sickeningly common with these kinds of parents.

Pete's glad the only reason he's in Catholic school is because they've got outstanding results (which he reckons is probably down to the mums of the straight A students and their odd forms of parenting) and his dad's determined to make sure Pete does something academic with his life. He, on the other hand, just wants to play bass. He wonders if Mikey Way wants hear him play bass - he bets he'd be impressed.

"It's a Catholic school. We're all Catholic here, of course we hate fags. It's what god says is right. You know? Adam and Eve... not Adam and Steve." Clearly this kid had had some seriously bible bashing, or so Pete thought, or at least he reckoned just about anyone could pick that up.

"Or Anna and Eve." Pete added, gaining the most horrific look from Mikey. "Just thought if you're going to slag off gay dudes, you might as well slag off lesbians as well. Don't tell me you're one of those assholes that hate gay dudes but are all for lesbians... as long as they can watch. I mean, I knew you were an asshole already, but I seriously didn't think you were that kind of asshole. If you're going to pull all that Adam and Eve bullshit don't watch lesbian porn, all I'm saying."

"I...I... don't watch porn..." Mikey stuttered out, blushing a little at the word, causing to Pete to roll his eyes and hope that for this ascendance only education Mikey ends up getting the first bitch he fucks pregnant. He'd love to watch Mrs Way deal with that.

"You watch Alicia Simmons playing netball in a miniskirt - close enough." Pete sighed, glancing back to the pitch to see that the game had ended and they were swapping teams. He would have cared just a little if the only reason he was here wasn't to laugh at Mikey Way as he practically perved on Alicia.

"Netball isn't for lesbians." Mikey pointed out, blushing, as it was very clear that the subject made him uncomfortable. Pete was at least proud that Mikey hadn’t tried to cleanse his sins or whatever by now. Pete knew this was a Catholic school, but there were some people that took it way too seriously.

"Lots of girls in minimal clothing, getting close to each other as they tried to get rid of a ball as fast as they can. Sounds more like feminist lesbians, actually." Pete smirked, watching Mikey's now radish red face with heightened amusement.

"You're racist to feminists." Mikey pointed out with all of his intelligence combined at once.

"Racist to feminists?" Pete broke out into laughter, "that made no sense you asshole."

"You're discriminating against feminists... they just want equality, don't they? I mean... the sane ones..." He mumbled, and the whole idea that Mikey was actually adopting anything from the past decade was surprising Pete beyond belief.

"Oh so girls wanting rights you're fine with? But not Asians, or gay dudes? Especially not Asian gay dudes- wow, hell if you ever met Jackie Chan-" Pete chuckled, deciding by now that Mikey Way was an absolute asshole, and it seemed like there was very little he could do about it, but of course that wouldn't stop him from trying.

"Jackie Chan is not gay..." Mikey widened his eyes, beginning to question if Pete was high right now, because it was certainly looking quite likely at this point.

"But do you know for certain huh?" He winked at him in response.

"I... uhh..." Mikey fell deep in blush shaped trap once more. "Can we not talk about this...?"

"Yeah, you told me about Toro and his librarian thingymaboop, but Iero, dude where the hell is Iero? If you're telling me he's got anything like that I'm going to fucking die dude." Pete expressed, reverting their conversation back into a complete one eighty-degree turn to the start.

"Uhh... I don't actually know where Frank is." Mikey admitted, blushing a little.

"Mikey I'm so sorry - it looks like all your friends have left you." Pete began in a weirdly operatic voice.

"Seriously do you know where Frank is because I actually haven’t seen him all day?" Mikey's tone broke into the reigns of sincerity, his gaze growing stern.

"Nah dude, where Iero is - I don't think anybody knows."

-

"And the reason we're skipping school for an evening 'social gathering' is...?" Frank asked, his gaze skeptical as he glanced around Jamia's bedroom, sat crossed legged and not at all complacent on her superwoman bed sheets, watching as she applied various toxic looking chemicals to her face in the big mirror a metre away.

"Well, Lindsey says we can turn up whenever we want after noon, and I want maximum lesbian action, and I’ve gotta take time to get ready, because if I don't look like a pretty like lady, my pretty little lady parts aren't getting licked out tonight." Frank cringed at her choice of words there, blushing a little, and left wondering why the hell he'd had to get up for this in the first place - he was already ready, and had been for several hours now, for Christ's sake.

Admittedly, Frank really wasn't expecting all that much and hadn't put much effort into his outfit past putting deodorant on. It wasn't as if he owned clothes other than black tight fitting ones that made him look like he was an eight grader, and with his height, or in fact, lack of it, he reckoned he really did make a shocking resemblance to an eight grader right now.

"And why does this apply to me?" Frank asked, eyebrows rose in skepticality and generally annoyance at Jamia's apparent incapability to function without the aid of lip-gloss. It was kind of pretty though, so I guess she had her reasons.

"Because, Franklin Anthony Iero," Jamia spun on her heels, now donning a full face up of surprising well done make up. Surprisingly well done for someone with a sprained wrist anyway - she'd fall out of a tree the other day, and Frank couldn't help but blame her. He wondered if this'd affect her lesbian abilities or not - Frank didn't know an awful lot about lesbians, and he reckoned that he might not want to.

"Yes, Jamia Lesbian Whore Nestor?" Frank asked, giving up and grabbing a smoke from his pocket, deciding she'd take another twenty minuets at the least and lighting the thing.

"If you set the alarm off I will set fire to your dick." She cursed before opening her wardrobe with concerning vigour.

"What are you doing...”? Frank trailed off, eyes widening, cigarette hanging limp between his lips.

"Don't get fucking cigarette ash on my bed you absolute fuckhead, use a fucking ashtray, you shithole!" Jamia exclaimed, racing forward and practically throwing Frank off her bed before he could drop any ash onto her sheets. "Twat." She chided in a strangely affectionate manner, before opening a cupboard above her wardrobe and tossing a plastic cup, that looked like it was designed to hold pencils and not cigarette ash, in Frank's direction. "Use this."

"Do you not have a real ashtray?" He asked, holding the cup between two fingers, almost eyeing it suspiciously.

"Yes because when my mum gets her OCD on and rampantly cleans my room she's not going to question an ashtray." Jamia rolled her eyes. "And to answer your previous question," she turned back to Frank, who hadn't quite the balls to return to the band and had now resorted to standing awkwardly half way across her bedroom with a plastic cup in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "I'm picking my outfit, because unlike you, Mr Iero, I'm going to go to a party in something other than five day old jeans and an Iron Maiden shirt."

"How do you know they're five days old anyway?" Frank asked, pulling at the black fabric on his legs awkwardly.

"You were wearing the exact same pair on Friday and you got white paint on them in art when you were acting like an ass and flicking it from your crotch like you were coming, which serves you right, because," she pointed to his crotch in a far too casual manner. "You’ve got white paint stains on your crotch now, and I'm going to be frank with you, Frank," He rolled his eyes at her pathetic attempt towards a pun, "they look like come stains. Makes you look like a slut though, so it's fine... or something."

"Jamia can I borrow some jeans?" Frank looked up Jamia with this pathetic, fuck me, I'm just about to shoot myself and my whole family, fuck my life, kind of glance.

"Girl jeans, Frankie?" She taunted, grinning like hell.

"I wear fucking girl jeans, Jamia, I'm like four fucking foot." She giggled, grabbing a pair from her wardrobe and tossing them in Frank's direction.

Frank let out a sigh, extinguishing his cigarette and chucking it in the plastic cup which he placed on the desk, before pulling his five day old jeans off and just awkwardly holding them for a moment, in his boxers, in Jamia's room. "Uhh... where do you want me to put these?"

Jamia spun around, clutching a black leather dress like thing, before bursting into a fucking childish fit of giggles, "nice boxers, Frankie."

"Fuck off, tell me where to put my fucking cumslut jeans." Frank snapped, shaking his head and seriously questioning his choice in friends.

"Just throw 'em on the bed, anywhere." She shrugged, casually.

"Your mum will find them... they're cumslut jeans..." Frank pointed out what in Jamia's mind was very much the obvious.

"Yeah, good, I want to keep her thinking I'm straight, you can pretend to be my boyfriend if necessary." Frank sighed, throwing his cumslut jeans on Jamia's bed and sparing a thought to the meek, mild woman that was Mrs Nestor, who really would not appreciate cumslut jeans on her bed.

He then pulled on the girl jeans, trying his best ignore that girl jeans from an actual girl were baggy on him as he pulled them up to Simon Cowell extremes to avoid them bunching at the bottoms, before realising they wouldn't stay without a belt and giving up entirely as he let them hang low over his hips with just about even slack at his ankles to clothe an entirely poverty stricken country.

"What do you think about this dress?" Jamia asked, holding up the black part leather one she'd be holding a moment ago. Frank shrugged, being a typical guy and having generally no fucking clue about fashion, even with being a massive homo.

"It's nice... and black... very black...? Pretty...?" Frank stumbled over his words, blushing a little as Jamia tossed him one of those 'I will slap you' looks.

"I'm going to have to invest in a new gay best friend, honestly - you're shit." She added in a typically affectionate and kind manner.

"Good luck finding one, I've been searching for like four years now-"

"Oh, yeah, Frankie, as I was saying. I've asked Lindsey, my lesbian hook up, if you weren't listening, and there are actual gay males at this social gathering, Frankie. So pull your girl jeans up and get some fucking eyeliner on."

And at the mention of actual gay males in his town, Frank froze, before moving into clockwork faster than ever before, making a beeline to Jamia's eyeliner draw, because right he didn't care if they were attractive or not, he was going to get some dick tonight.

Perhaps he should have worn the cumslut jeans after all.

-

Frank really didn't know what to expect from the words 'social gathering', well other than pretentious assholes, but what he really was not expecting was a bungalow in the suburbs, but Jamia hadn't stopped her car here for no reason.

"Not exactly Vegas, I know." She commented, noticing Frank's widened eyes. "Heard they got some pot though so it can't be that bad."

"I'd rather remember it if I am going to get laid tonight." Frank added, not wanting to admit that weed intimidated him a little, especially considering the fact that everyone here was older than him, even Jamia. And it really didn’t help that he now looked like a female eighth grader.

"If I knew you were going to be such a whore about things then I would've told you to keep the cumslut jeans." Jamia smirked, "now come get out the car you virgin, I want you to meet Lindsey, then you can go get assfcuked or whatever, but the whole point of you coming is meeting Lindsey."

"Yeah, meeting Lindsey. Are you two dating or is it just casual, Jamia?" He pulled on a typical parental voice. "How much is her yearly income? What grades did she get-"

"Shut up you sound like my fucking dad!" Jamia exclaimed, chocking on laughter, "come on get out the car, cumslut."

"Please don't call me that." He let out a sigh.

"Cumslut." She repeated, grinning like nothing could stop her, and Frank honestly doubted that anything would.

The door was practically opened for them before Jamia could even ring the doorbell. Frank peered in at the muscular dude, putting his gaydar on full signal strength for tonight - the dude stood before him was not on it.

For a start, he stunk of weed, and was clutching a beer can is his left hand it was what... one pm latest? He was alright appearance wise though; with blue eyes and blonde hair... the beard however was questionable.

"Oh, hey, I'm Bob, so you're Jamia, I'm presuming." He pointed towards her with his beer can.

"Yeah, hey." She smiled at him, turning back to Frank, "this is Frank, Lindsey said I could bring him."

"Yeah whatever, more the merrier, we've got like four people here, and I don't even count as a real guest." He exclaimed, gesturing the two of them in and neither bothered to take their shoes off, as it was clear Bob hadn't.

"Why aren't you a real guest?" Jamia asked, curious about his previous statement.

"I'm the drug dealer, I get the pot, and they get me an invite in return, you know I'm in it for the free booze so it's pretty good for me." He reeled off, chuckling a little, and Frank reckoned that he did seem to be a pretty nice guy, but he really wasn't down for the drug dealer shit and the fact that he was drunk at one pm.

"I see you've making use of that free booze." Jamia commented, easing up to Bob in a way that made Frank feel more than just a little awkward.

"Certainly 'ave, certainly 'ave." He grinned, leading Frank and Jamia into what was assumed to be the main room of the house.

The first thing Frank couldn't help but take in was the obvious age of the people around him, most appeared to be in their twenties, a few going on thirty, and as an eighteen year old, he couldn't help but feel just a little awkward.

"Jamia!" A tall woman with black hair and curves that even a gay guy like Frank couldn't help but notice jumped up from the couch to greet Jamia, which in Frank's opinion was great and all, considering the fact that Lindsey looked to be only about twenty two and not particularly stoned, until they started involving tongues and Frank couldn't help but look away.

The only problem however with looking away was that he was thrown right into the eye line of what he presumed to be the remaining guests, which consisted of a dude with long black hair, another guy that looked to be going on thirty with dark brown hair, and another with this weird brown fringe thing going on.

And in that moment Frank was oddly thankful for Bob to be behind him, patting his shoulder and wonderfully announcing him to the three dudes in front of him, which to Frank's disappointment, none of which appeared particularly attractive. "Guys, this is Frankie, can I call you Frankie? I'm gonna call you Frankie, friends with Jamia, so whilst she's busy lesbianing over there, try to do something so he isn't standing there like a cactus - you know, all prickly. I'm sure he's lovely."

Bob pulled my head to look at him. "You lovely, Frankie?"

"Uhh... I guess." He said with a blush, cursing girl jeans for not having pockets so he couldn't distract his hands from whatever awkward fidgeting they were doing.

"Fuck..." Frank snapped out of his awkward bubble, and even Lindsey and Jamia stopped making out at the sound of a crash as the door practically fell off its hinges as someone crashed through.

"Fuck these fucking heels, I'm going to have accept that I will never be taller than five seven, aren't I?" Frank's eyes couldn't help but widen as he laid his gaze upon who'd just crashed through the door and was now pulling a pair of black stiletto heels from their feet and throwing them back through the door, causing an unknown crash in what Frank assumed to be the kitchen behind the door.

"You're paying for that, Gee." Long hair guy remarked, glaring across the room at 'Gee' who now stood in an oversized, low cut, girl fit black t-shirt, proclaiming the word 'Slut' across Gee's flat chest in bold letters, matched with a red punk style tartan miniskirt and then Frank suddenly felt like Mikey, and Gee felt an awful lot like Alicia.

Frank had never understood the appeal of miniskirts on girls, but on guys, fuck, he didn't know how this had happened, but he suddenly understood all of Mikey's actions, because from that moment on, Gee was the kind of person Frank would most definitely fuck up his life trying to impress.

Gee was obviously a guy from his voice and the absence of curves at all on his body, and of course his inability to walk in heels, yet there was no denying that he was fucking feminine to the extreme; his black hair straightened and brushed into a side parting, his eyes donning eyeliner and several coats of mascara. In Frank's opinion, Gee was fucking hot.

"Hey Lindsey... Jamia?" He struggled to pronounce her name a little and Frank couldn't help but watch as his mouth moved to push the words out.

"Uhh... hey." Jamia replied, blushing a little as she glanced Gee up and down, not quite able to tell his gender as easily as Frank had.

"Questionable shirt." Lindsey remarked, gesturing towards the slut t-shirt he wore with just enough pride to make Frank laugh.

"Oh, I just want to inform everyone that I'm a slut and I'm totally down for fucking tonight." He smirked, and Frank couldn't draw himself away from his thick Jersey accent and the way he made the word 'hey' sound like sin itself.

"Better than your cumslut jeans, eh, Frankie?" Jamia turned around, drawing not Gee's attention onto Frank, but everyone in the room's attention too.

"Frankie." Gee smirked, pushing Frank's name through his lips in a manner that Frank reckoned should be considered illegal.

"Cumslut jeans?" Fringe guy exclaimed, bursting into laughter. "Sounds like something this little shit would come up with." He pointed in Gee's direction.

"Yeah, cumslut jeans, do tell, honey." He winked, making Frank blush with in barely moments of meeting him, and for once Frank wasn't even complaining.

"He had come stains on his jeans." Jamia smirked, lying in order to make Frank blush, noticing just how his face keeping doing that whenever Gee spoke to him, which Jamia found very interesting indeed.

"It was white paint, Jamia." Frank corrected her, mentally killing her in about a thousand different ways in his head right now.

"That's what they all say." Bob added, smirking whilst taking a swig of his beer can and ending up choking on it in the process.

"Don't make him feel bad about, all natural you know, circle of life... and your dick." Brown hair dude added, "Lets get some music on, hey? Piss off the neighbours a little, you know. The guests are here now." 

"Oh, but manners, has Frankie been introduced to you three?" Gee asked, beckoning for Frank across the room, who awkwardly followed and stood beside him, his eyes involuntarily drifting to his thighs and how that miniskirt was riding up them and oh fuck.

"I'm Bert," Long hair dude introduced himself, "and these assholes are Cortez and Dewees." He gestured towards the brown hair guys beside him. "Bob put some good fucking music on, I'm not having any of that shit that slut over here wants to listen to." And Frank's heart couldn't but skip a beat as Gee was refereed to as 'slut', which was something he didn't even seem to mind.

"The Smiths are not shit." Gee exclaimed, looking personally offended by Bert's statement, which in the author's opinion, he had all the right to be. And Frank was seriously dying here, because Gee could not like The Smiths, if this guy turned out to be anymore perfect then he figured he end up fucking him on the spot or something, because Frank reckoned that Gee was even more attractive than Morrissey. And that was saying something.

"Yeah, Smiths are fucking awesome." Frank added, noticing Gee's very obvious gesture at stepping closer to him at that point, his miniskirt very close to Frank's crotch, which really was not helping at all.

"Fuck's sake guys." Bob yelled, still hovering beside the CD player, "Frankie's the guest, he's wearing a Maiden shirt, we're playing Maiden, end of story, you can all come suck my dick about it later." And before anyone could argue, the room was filled with the sound of Iron Maiden's 1981 album, Killers.

And Frank was barely even conscious as Gee dragged him through the door he'd walked in through, stopping to glance at the wooden dining table where the stilettos hand landed. "Bert's gonna kill me, fuck I don't even care, come on, Frankie." He tugged on Frank's hand, eventually leading him out into the garden and closing the door behind them as not to piss of the neighbours too much with the sound of Iron Maiden at one pm.

"Want to actually talk to you." Gee provided as explanation before sitting crossed legged on the grass... in a miniskirt, which was a great idea to Frank's dick, but to his head, not so much. He sat beside him nonetheless, because standing there staring at the crotch of someone you just met was perhaps even more awkward.

"So cumslut," He began, smirking at Frank as he spoke, "tell me about yourself."

"Huh?" Frank asked, blushing a little as Gee sat so they were opposite, and locked in eye contact constantly. At least if he was looking at his eyes, he'd be distracted from that fucking miniskirt, Frank thought. "Please don't call me cumslut."

"Is this the part where you go all 'no homo' on me? I'm sorry I was barely even flirting with you, joking if anything. I'm sorry that your straight ass thinks that talk to you, means suck your dick - I wouldn't go near it. You seemed pretty decent - liked The Smiths, didn't question the miniskirt, but oh of course not your an asshole like the rest of them. Enjoy this - I started listening to The Smiths because I saw a picture of Morrissey and thought he was fucking hot, happy now?" Gerard screamed out at Frank, far too tired with the absolute lack of gay, or even decent guys in Jersey these days.

"Gee... I... no, you're wrong-" Frank began to explain, even laughing a little at the fact that he'd just been called straight.

"Oh really, honey?" Gee shook his head, getting up to leave.

"I'm gay." Frank spat the words out, desperate for Gee not to leave, because he was not going to let what he reckoned to be his perfect guy go quite so easily at all.

Gee froze in his tracks and sat back, locking eyes with Frank, "don't fuck with me. No one's fucking even bi here - I've learned that by now. You and Jamia go to the Catholic school, no fucking chance. I went there too. I know you'd practically be dead by now-"

"You went to a Catholic school?" Frank choked out, knowing Gee would be the kind of person that'd make Mikey want to perform an immediate exorcise on him.

"I ran away - live with Bert now - he puts up with me." Gee added, grinning a little. "Fucking sucks honey, be glad you're getting out of there soon." He met Frank with sincere eyes.

"Fuck I am. Jamia's the only person that knows I'm gay, and my fucking friends man, one of them he's obsessed with this girl - stalking her, learned croquet just because he thinks she'll date him because of that. She thinks he's a fucking perv though; all he does is stare her ass in that netball uniform miniskirt. Like, fuck, I never understood the appeal of a miniskirt, until-" And then Frank stopped himself, throwing his hands over his lips as he realised exactly where he was going with this. 

"Until?" Gee asked, mascara coated lashes blinking up innocently at him.

"Now..." He stuttered out, his eyes falling upon the miniskirt that now lay dangerously high on his thighs.

Gee exhaled loudly, making Frank gulp, until the silence was eventually filled. "Oh, so you do like the miniskirt, huh? Cumslut?" Frank shot him a glance. "Frankie." He corrected himself with a sarcastic smile.

"Yeah, it's uhh... hot." Frank breathed out, quite honestly scared at where he was going with this, his dick thinking instead of his head. "And about Morrissey, I saw a gig with a friend, and Morrissey was basically how I discovered I like dudes."

"I'm laughing at the fact that I called you straight now, honestly." Gee let out a fucking giggle and oh god, Frank was not okay with this but so totally okay with this. "All of what I said was lies, Frankie, okay?"

"So... were you lying when you said wouldn't come near my dick...?"

"Fucking cumslut." He let out a little hitched gasp, Gee's eyes trailed towards Frank's jeans and giggling again. "Cumslut. Cumslut. Cumslut. You don't like me calling you that, because it goes straight to your fucking dick, you cumslut."

"Fuck... Gee." Frank let out an involuntarily moan, which oh fuck he did Gee enjoy.

"You say my name once more and I'm going to have to do something about these slutty moans, cumslut." Gee watched as Frank's eyes closed at his and he took the opportunity to grab the eighteen year old's hand and yank down his zipper, placing it over his dick through his boxer shorts.

"Gee..." Frank moaned out, his hand tightened around himself and before he could even pull his eyes open, Gee had pulled his jeans down completely the boxers on their way down too.

"You know when I said I wanted to talk you, Frankie?" Gee asked, Frank only mumbling in response, barely able to breathe as he came to the realisation of just what was happening between them right now. "This shirt's here for a reason." Frank's eyes only flashed open long enough to read the word 'slut' off Gee's chest before his visions was blurred by Gee taking him into his mouth.

"Knees." He mumbled against Frank's already hard member, and right then Frank didn't even care that they were outside and it was barely even two pm and that he totally should be at Catholic school right now. Gee's tongue on his dick made him forget all of that instantly.

Frank pushed his fingers through Gee's perfectly straightened hair and he almost felt guilty to ruin it, but he honestly thought that if he wasn't holding onto Gee in someway, that he'd fall back against the grass, because with Gee all over him like this, he was in no way stable at all.

And it barely took Gee to run his tongue over Frank's slit before he was coming right down Gee's throat, who of course, swallowed it, smirking up at Frank, reminding him that he took great pleasure in doing so.

"You've never been sucked before have you?" Gee asked, wiping Frank's come from his lips as he pulled away once Frank had finished and oh my god Frank was dying at the sight of Gee like that with his come dripping from his lips.

"Catholic school." Frank reminded him, blushing a little.

"Come here." Gee gestured to Frank as Gee sat cross legged once more, Frank's jeans and boxers still at his knees but he couldn't care less. Gee grabbed Frank's hand taking it up underneath the miniskirt and placing it on his own member.

"Fuck, you're not even wearing underwear under here!" Frank exclaimed, running his hand up and down Gee's length, still getting used to the fact that there was a dick under this miniskirt. Imagine how Mikey would freak out if that happened to him, and Frank nearly burst out laughing at that.

"Your boxers are at your knees. It's afternoon, all the fucking neighbours can see that pretty little ass of yours, Frankie." Gee giggled and then his breath hitched, Frank touching just the right spot and moving faster and then Gee was coming into the eighteen year old's fist.

"Fuck." Gee sighed out, falling back against the grass, pulling the miniskirt down a little. He turned his head towards Frank. "Put your cumslut jeans back on, cumslut."

"These aren't even the cumslut jeans and it was honestly white paint-"

"Frankie I think they are now."

Frank looked down and sure enough, the white splatters on these jeans were not paint at all.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys:) Ahha, not quite sure how I've made a second chapter already, and it's 3am and I've been writing this since midnight and this is definitely either not or most definitely the highlight of my life and I don't even know what to think of this chapter I'm just going to publish it before sanity gets the better of me because I think the world does need Gerard Way in a fucking miniskirt.


	3. I'm Buying These Panties For Frank Iero's Benefit

"I told you that you have to pay for that." Bert let out an offhand comment as he made his way into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his newly opened eyes and doing very little about the disgustingly greasy state his hair was in. 

Despite having woken up, Bert McCracken was far too tired to have a shower, and entirely more preoccupied with Gee, who sat at the breakfast bar, clad in the same shirt from last night, hanging low and finishing at mid thigh length, whilst sipping black coffee, what Bert at first assumed to be a cigarette held loosely between his fingers, angled so it was dropping ash exactly into the waste bin beside the breakfast bar.

Gee turned around, noticing that the stilettos from last night were still laid across the dining table in very much the same position he'd chosen to ignore them in. "Nothing's broken." He commented, turning back around and taking a long drag.

Bert's eyes widened as he fixated upon the object Gee held between his fingers. "Jesus Christ, it's what... ten in the morning and you're already smoking pot."

Gee simply shrugged in response. "Have a lot to think about." He added as an explanation, hiding his face behind the mug as he sipped away at the remaining coffee in his mug.

He thought about making himself another, but he really wasn't in the mood to move at all, until he'd finished this joint at the very least, and with the state that his housemate was in right now, it was becoming increasingly more unlikely that Bert would be in a good enough mood to make him another coffee.

"What? About that kid you boned last night?" Bert asked, chuckling to himself a little and not nearly as shocked as when he'd seen the two of them through the kitchen window last night - who knew midget Catholic school kids had a thing for greasy haired, technically homeless, cross dressers?

The word technically being used to highlight the fact that Gee's residence in Bert's house was in no way legal or even official by any means. The thing is, Bert had an awfully hard time saying no to Gee when he'd offered blowjobs as payment. The older man had turned a blind eye to the mild forms of prostitution and let his friend stay, but then of course, Gee got otherwise preoccupied, or perhaps gained some self respect and as much as Bert would hate to admit, even with the absence of blowjobs, the two of them are kind of stuck together.

"Frankie isn't a kid, Bert." Gee rolled his eyes, holding the joint a little outstretched as he tucked his dyed black hair behind his ears. "I know you have self esteem issues but that doesn't mean you need to convince yourself than I'm as messed up as that."

"Frankie." Bert snorted, making himself a coffee for the sole reason to piss off Gee, not actually liking coffee all that much, and really would have much preferred to have started his day off with some vodka, but as he'd found out, parties, or 'social gatherings' were very draining upon your alcohol supply.

"Frankie sounds like a fucking eight year old girl's name." He rolled his eyes at Gee, grabbing his coffee and kicking the stilettos off the dining table and sitting down at the end, putting his feet upon on the table as Gee turned around from where he sat on the breakfast bar, mildly amused at Bert's sloppy position. "He looks like a fucking eight year old girl too."

"If Frankie's a girl, then what the fuck am I?" Gee asked, finishing his coffee and sliding it along the table top, before jumping to his feet, joint still in hand as he practically strutted towards Bert.

"You're a slut, as your shirt so kindly reminds me." Bert smirked, watching as his housemate leaned back against the wall, smoking and watching him from a distance. "And you know, since I'm well aware of that, you should just take that shirt off, I'm sure there's something underneath I don't know quite as well."

"Fuck off, Bert." Gee rolled his eyes, sighing as he came to realise that he hadn't bothered to wipe his make up off last night and it had most probably sunken into his skin and thoroughly infected him by now.

"Loyal to little Frankie now already are we?" Bert smirked, amused by just how attached the guy got to people - perhaps that was why he still stuck around in this shitty bungalow.

Bert hated the fact that he lived in a bungalow - a fucking bungalow for Christ's sake! Who of any importance has ever lived in a bungalow ever? And to top that off, there's not one of his neighbours that aren't senior citizens, and seriously he's into older women, but not one's that are quite that old. He'd prefer his fucks to be able to remember his name when they're screaming it out.

"Can we drop the whole 'you're a creep' thing?" Gee let out a sigh, gesturing with his hands dramatically as he spoke and nearly dropping his joint in the process, which would have been really unfortunate for both Gee and the carpet, which still stunk of milk and lemons from very drunken incidents that neither resident would like to discuss or even remember at all.

"If you drop your little middle school boyfriend, then yes." Bert smirked, finishing his coffee and slamming the mug down against the table with considerable velocity. "I've missed you." He added, batting his eyelashes up at Gee.

"We're not a thing, Bert. Never were and never will be." Gee confirmed, smoking the end of his joint and considering getting another one, but that would require moving from the room, so he took a seat opposite Bert - pissing him off would have pretty much the same kind of calming effect.

"Exactly. I don't do things, honey." Bert grinned, far too pleased with the fact that Gee had sat down opposite him. "I do fucking hot things that little kids like him haven't a clue about." Bert ran his tongue over his lips as he spoke and Gee considered slapping him, but he didn't particularly fancy the idea of being literally homeless.

"I'm sure he's watched plenty of porn, don't worry." Gee added, actually completely unsure of his words, considering the fact that Frank was a little Catholic boy and during their little encounter last night, he had seemed pretty clueless about the whole endeavour, but pretty hot too - Gee'd give him that.

"He's like twelve." Bert snickered, brushing his hair from his face. "I don't think his little Catholic mummy would like that. Oh my god, Gee, you sicko, you're preying on the little Catholic boys - fucking creep - I told you." Bert nearly choked upon his laughter and that moment in time, Gee would have preferred that he actually did.

"He's at least sixteen. Probably older. I'll ask Lindsey, she'll know." Gee explained, blushing a little as he contemplated the fact that perfect little Frankie could be sixteen. He also thought it best that he didn't refer to him as little, as that was freaking him out a quite a lot by now.

"You don't even know, wow, Gee, fucking low, honey, fucking low." Bert chuckled, the situation amusing him to the point that Gee was seriously reconsidering that punching him in the face idea - he could always go live with Bob - he'd probably be too high to notice most of the time.

"Why do you care?" Gee spat, glaring at Bert with all his strength right now. "Are you jealous that I'm sucking someone else off these days, I'd bet you'd love my whore lips around that tiny little puny 'dick' of yours. I bet I could fit it all in half of my mouth. Here's a fact - I know for certain that little Frankie has a bigger fucking dick than you."

"You turned into a real asshole ever since you started wearing all that girl shit." Bert commented, pulling out a cigarette from his pocket and watching Gee's jealous face with a particularly smug expression as he began to smoke the thing.

"I like dressing this way." Gee said, his voice suddenly growing very timid and far too quiet to match his personality from mere seconds ago. Anyone could tell that he didn't like talking about this; Bert, of course, could, but however did not care.

"What? Like a fucking transvestite?" Bert laughed - Gee did not. "When are you going to get some fucking tits bro? That I'll look forward to.”

"I'm- I'm... I'm not transgender, I don't want to be a girl as such, I don't want tits, I-" Gee stuttered over his words, suddenly wishing he'd had either the second coffee or the second joint, or most preferably - both.

"You just want to dress like a fucking pansy." Bert finished, getting up from the table and making his way over to the kitchen, certain they'd have some form of emergency alcohol somewhere, because seriously Gee was pissing him off by now.

"I just... I just want to look pretty." Gee tried to explain, following Bert into the kitchen in what was nothing other than an entirely stupid decision, but of course he continued nonetheless, because what else could he do. He lived with the guy, for fuck's sake.

"By wearing your ex-girlfriend's old clothes?" Bert snorted, eyebrows raising once again, returning from the cupboard with a smug expression and a bottle of gin in his left hand.

"Lindsey and I didn't date, Bert-" Gee attempted to explain, but of course, since this what Bert whatever argument he put forth yielded no response whatsoever, well at least, none of a positive nature. Not that anything that left Bert's lip was positive at all. "I just lived with her for a while, you know, after it happened."

"Classy, Gerard, classy."

Gee went paler than his natural tone at the use of his real name, it bringing back nothing other than entirely bad memories. "Please, Bert, don't call me that."

Bert simply snickered in response, "sorry, Gerard, couldn't hear you. That lipstick's muffling the sounds coming from your lips. And you know what I think that miniskirt from last night has something to do with it. Fucking pansy."

"Shut the fuck up, Robert." Gee didn't want to go to measures as bad as Bert's, especially when he knew what connotations that name held to him, but sometimes there was no other way to make the guy shut up, and he hated just who he sounded like when he let that thought slip through his head.

"You know what he did. You know he only ever called me that when, when he was 'disciplining me'. Some fucking discipline. And yet you still-" Bert words were cut off as he took a swig from the bottle of gin, downing just about half of it in one go, which even Gee reckoned wasn't healthy and he was starting his day with some drugs and a coffee blacker than his soul.

"Only my parents called me that, and you know what they were like too. I'm sorry, I just, Bert, you don't shut up. I like the way I dress and it gives me confidence - I feel good. And I like Frankie, I like him a lot, and I'm going to go round to see Lindsey and ask her if she can get Jamia to get us in contact. Because you know what, maybe you should put the needs of others before the needs of your dick."

"Fine." Bert sighed, taking another swig - the gin calming him down a little, but fucking up his throat in the process - ah, well, who ever needed a throat. "Just please, Gee, remember that you're twenty five, if he's any younger than sixteen, that's a ten year age gap."

"I know." Gee nodded, smiling, and grabbing his phone from where it was charging on the side. "He's probably older than sixteen anyway. I reckon he & Jamia are in the same year, and I know Lindsey's younger than me, only by like three years, but she wouldn't date a fifteen or sixteen year old."

"She has more common sense that you." Bert added his spin upon it, finishing the bottle of gin, and preparing to spend his day doing nothing but smoking weed and jacking off, which sounded pretty good and he may as well invite Bob round to keep him company in the process. Not that he particularly wanted Bob to watch him wank off or anything - the guy would probably give him free weed if he gave him free porn - that's all.

"Whatever, dude." Gee let out a sigh, making his way through the hall and into his bedroom, staring at his pile of suitable outdoor wear in dismay, making a mental reminder that he needed to ask Lindsey for some more girl jeans, because he may be proud of the way he looked, but despite his confidence, he still wasn't fully comfortable with wearing things like shockingly short miniskirts out of the house.

He eventually opted for the one pair of girl jeans he had, ignoring the fact that they hadn't been washed in days and squeezing in his stomach as he pulled them on, deciding it best that he changed his shirt, and opted for a Smiths shirt, wearing it in honour of stupid little Catholic boys that better be at least sixteen.

He touched up his lipstick and ran a brush through his hair before he left, deciding that his eyeliner looked best smudged to hell anyway. He just had to hope he didn't run into anyone dressed like this, especially not his parents.

-

Gee didn't like to say he had issues with leaving the house, but when he spent most of his time in Bert's grotty bungalow, and was now only venturing out in search of fucking Frankie, whom he didn't even know the surname of, Gee would say that perhaps leaving the house on regular occasion was perhaps not his strong point.

There was just the very frightening fact that if his highly Catholic parents ever saw him again, let alone walking around with fucking lipstick on, he'd most likely be shot upon the spot, and really he was just glad he managed to get out of there, even if the experience hadn't been exactly enjoyable by any means whatsoever.

Gee had never agreed with any of the shit that they'd preached into him from a sickeningly young age - he didn't believe in God at all, and they didn't like that at all, and when he turned out to be a massive fucking homo, that was just fucking wonderful. Honestly, they didn't approve of his music taste, his interest in art and not any other subjects, his feminine appearance (even then, god forbid they saw him now), or even his common sense and simple fucking belief in equality.

Mikey had always been the fucking perfect little brother, and part of Gee hoped that they'd be taking out their dark side on him now they were gone, and that fucking little Mikey wouldn't be so fucking perfect anymore, but even Gee knew that that was horrible thing to wish upon someone, even someone he'd grown to hate.

He assumed that Mikey went to the same school as Jamia and Frank. He chuckled to himself, wondering what the two parties would make of each other and guessing instantly that they could of course be nothing more than worst enemies - Mikey and him were complete opposites, and Frank was definitely on his end of the spectrum.

Gee kind of secretly hoped that Frank had some guts on him so that he could find some excuse for him to punch Mikey right in the fucking face some day.

He of course discarded of that thought pretty much the instant it came to his mind, and luckily for him, Lindsey's house grew near, a long with heating, coffee, contact to Frank, and some good fucking jeans, because these ones were really starting to stink by now.

He also kind of wanted Lindsey to buy him some panties, considering that boxers and miniskirts weren't the best of fits, and as he had discovered last night, going commando was only good in certain situations, and he hoped those situations continued to involve Frank.

-

"You look high and it's what? Midday?" Lindsey let out a sigh, her eyes fixated upon Gee's red and puffy ones as he stood at her doorstep. She was reluctant to let him in in this state, but Gee was most certainly a special case, and considering that she knew his parents had kicked him out, she really couldn't leave him there.

Gee was certainly acting a hell of a lot more confident these days - that was for certain, and as much as Lindsey hated to admit, it wasn't just the clothes he'd been borrowing from her, which was really no issue at all, and she was in fact more than happy to provide him with them if they boosted his confidence to this extent, but it was very much the alcohol and drugs too.

She couldn't directly hate him for it, because even at the age of twenty five, Gee acted rather like an awkward teenager, and she knew that was due to the fact that with the parents he'd had he was only just allowed to discover himself, and she just had to push aside her worries and assume he was going through that rebellious stage, but at the age of twenty five.

Her main concern was Bert - the guy was nice enough, letting Gee stay with him, because as much as Lindsey would love to let him live with her, her house was tiny and she didn't have the room or the money to cater for a second individual, and see knew very much that if she was living with him, she'd be acting like his mother twenty four seven. Bert was just nothing short of a bad influence upon him, with the drugs and shit, and his attitude, even Lindsey knew, was not of the best kind.

Gee seemed to be alright though, a little stoned, but generally alright. These days, she was just making sure that he was happy - she never wanted either of them to have to relive just how bad Gee had been when he'd first gotten kicked out, and honestly she was just glad that he'd been sleeping on the streets outside her place, because otherwise, the chance that he would be dead by now was unfortunately high.

"Hey..." Gee sighed, brushing his hair behind his ear, and pushing past Lindsey as he made himself comfortable in her living room, sprawling out across the sofa that he usually claimed - something which by now Lindsey had gotten used to.

"You want coffee?" She asked, peering her head around the doorway, examining his laid out form with a sigh.

"When don't I?" Gee added, his voice and tone just a little sour for Lindsey's liking and she made a mental note to put sugar in his coffee. He never took it with sugar, but she knew that the effects of sugar upon Gee were both extremely useful and terribly dangerous.

Gee hadn't moved when Lindsey walked back in with two coffees - the black one, secretly spiked with just a little sugar for him, and a milky one for herself - she could barely stomach anything before about three in the afternoon.

He did of course perk up as soon as the smell of coffee hit his nose, and Lindsey was left to watch in amusement as his figure jolted up, taking the coffee in his hand and taking far too big of a mouthful at once, and resulting in him burning his tongue, and then swearing excessively.

"Fuck that coffee, god." He sighed, pushing it back down onto the coffee table and leaning back, almost scowling at the thing a little.

"Let me guess," Lindsey began, her lips drawing up into a grin. "You're here because you want to steal some more of my clothes." She appreciated his presence of course, but there was a recurring pattern in the fact that whenever Gee visited her, he never left empty handed, and she was having to spend an awful amount on clothes these days and she began to wonder why she didn't just buy him exactly what he wanted, instead of him scavenging through her old shit.

"No, actually... I'm not... well not entirely..." He bit his lip, blushing a little as he remembered the panties, and just how awkward it was to ask for something like that, but really no one knew him and understood him like Lindsey Ballato. "I... uhh... need some... I..." Gee collapsed into a blush and Lindsey looked him up and down, before coming to a sudden realisation.

"You want me to buy you some panties, don't you...?" She took the words from his lips and in the silence he eventually pulled his gaze back up to meet hers, his face matching the red tones of his lipstick in a way that definitely didn't compliment his outfit.

"Yeah... I... uhh... it's just the miniskirts and yeah... I..." He mumbled, kind of wishing he could just kill himself right now.

"Gee, it's fine, I guessed this was going to happen at some point." She hit him with a reassuring smile, and Gee resorted to burying his blush in the still piping hot mug of coffee.

"Also... I, do you know Jamia's friend from last night, I-"

Lindsey's eyes widened and she started giggling like a maniac. "Oh my god you've finally found someone and it's Frank fucking Iero from the Catholic school."

Iero. Gee thought to himself, that really did fit - Frank Iero. Frank Iero-Way- Let's not go there. Not quite yet anyway, Gee reckoned.

"He's perfect, fuck... I... know he's so much younger than me, but I just get this feeling when I look at him and oh my god. He's just beautiful, and he's just everything." Gee blushed, his mind flickering back to yesterday as he took the opportunity to remind himself of just how much he wanted that to happen again.

"What the hell happened between you two?" Lindsey asked, eyebrows raised, her face contorting into a typical motherly expression. "I hope you didn't fuck - he's seventeen, you know. That's eight years." She emphasised, ignoring the fact that Gee acted like a fucking fifteen year old.

"He's seventeen, fuck." He let out a sigh, falling back against the sofa. "Bert said I couldn't date him if he was any younger than sixteen. I thought he would be just a little bit older though, he feels older in a way - he like The Smiths and he didn't care about the miniskirt, he's just so fucking perfect."

"Can we cut down on the lovesick puppy bullshit if possible, Gee?" She let out a sigh, knowing far too well that she was exactly the same when she met Jamia at the skate park with Jimmy, except Jamia was eighteen and therefore their relationship was technically legal, and unlike Gee, she was only twenty two. "What happened between you two, though?"

"I sucked him off, and he gave me a handjob." Gee admitted, blushing a little at thought and trying his best not to get a fucking semi whilst his best friend was in the room, especially when she knew just as well as him that the cause was Frank fucking Iero.

"In the miniskirt..." Lindsey put two and two together and let out a sigh. "I'm buying you panties for Frank Iero, aren't I?" She looked up at him with these 'don't fucking bullshit me you ass' eyes, and Gee couldn't help but shift awkwardly in his seat.

"Maybe..." He croaked out and Lindsey rolled her eyes. "You're still getting me them though, aren't you?" He added, his voice growing very quiet and just so fucking awkward, because right now he kind of felt like burying himself alive.

"Yeah, if you stick around."

"What?"

"Jamia's coming around later and she's bringing Frank, because he doesn't want to go to watch the netball game after school with his friends. At first, you know, I was pissed off with that, but now things have taken a positive turn, don't you think, Gee?"

-

"Whatever over the top lesbian action you're forced into experiencing is of your own accord, because remember, I'm doing you a favour by getting you out of Mikey's daily 'Alicia's Ass Appreciation Appointment'. You don't have to be here, Frank." Jamia reminded him as they turned onto Lindsey's street, which thankfully for Frank's legs, as they had endured what he assumed to be marathon training in sport last lesson, was barely ten minutes away from school.

"You think I want to look at Alicia in a miniskirt for an hour." Frank snorted, the face of someone he'd really like to look at in a miniskirt flashing across his mind. However if him and Gee were alone with that miniskirt, Frank really doubted that he'd last an hour without fucking him or something.

"I wouldn't mind that." Jamia commented, smirking just a little and tugging at her school skirt, and just hating how the both of them were still in fucking Catholic school uniform, well she'd pulled up her skirt considerably, and had changed into a pair of converse from her sports kit, ditching her blazer and tie in the process and untucking her shirt, and undoing just enough buttons that the view of her chest would instantly give Mikey Way an orgasm if he saw her.

"I feel so awkward in this shit." She let out a sigh, glancing at Frank, who at the very least had managed to get away with wearing skinny jeans to school for far too long - how he'd managed this at a fucking Catholic school was completely beyond her knowledge, and quite honestly, Frank wasn't too sure either, but he seriously was not going to risk jinxing it.

"Me too, and I need a fucking smoke." Frank snapped, not having smoked all day, and was now going through withdrawal symptoms that were most certainly unhealthy for a seventeen year old. He tugged at his school tie, loosening it a little and genuinely considering ditching the thing in a drain or something, but he didn't particularly fancy the detention tomorrow.

"I told you, I finished mine." Jamia let out a sigh, functioning quite perfectly without having a cigarette since lunch.

"Whatever." Frank shrugged, and Jamia pressed her finger against the doorbell, watching Frank scowl to himself as she waited.

"Hey!" Lindsey exclaimed, pulling the door open and glancing between the two teenagers, kissing Jamia quickly before inviting them both in, and Frank watched with a nicotine deprived, and mildly jealously driven, scowl as Lindsey and Jamia joined hands and he followed them into the living room.

And that was when Frank realised that perhaps he wasn't just missing a smoke; perhaps he was missing a certain someone in a miniskirt too.

Needless to say, as Frank Iero followed them into the living room and his eyes fell upon Gee smoking complacently in the sofa across the room, he died more than just a little inside.

"Oh, yeah this asshole's here - I hope you don't mind." Lindsey offered as explanation and Gee dragged his gaze up, awkwardly meeting Frank's, and the school tie hitting him just as instantly as the cigarette had hit Frank.

"Fuck, please tell me you'll let me bum a smoke." Frank practically begged, going weak inside and he wasn't sure whether it was from the cigarette he held in his hand, or Gee himself.

"Didn't know you smoked." Gee commented, trying not exclaim aloud that his perfect guy had suddenly become all the more perfect and in fact all the more in his vicinity. Frank shrugged in response, blushing a little. "But yeah, sure." He grabbed a cigarette from the packet in his jeans and held it out to Frank, who felt as if the whole world had stopped as walked around to Gee and their fingers brushed as he retrieved the cigarette.

Fuck.

"Put it in your mouth - I'll light it for you." Frank blushed like fuck, wishing he could have something else entirely in his mouth, but complied and as Gee stood up, bringing the lighter to the smoke between Frank's lips, he was sure he would have fucking kissed him if lesbian central weren't on the sofa behind them.

And it certainly didn't help when Gee sat back down next to Frank with absolutely no space between the two of them whatsoever. Frank's dick, however, really did disagree, and even reckoned that perhaps this was just the best idea he'd ever had.

"He's been bitching at me all day because he hasn't had one since yesterday and has the brain of a forty year old chain smoker." Jamia added, rolling her eyes, somehow being the only one unaware to the intense sexual tension in the room right now.

"It's not my fault the shitty off license that didn't ask for I.D. got shut down, is it?" Frank sighed, leaning back against the sofa, but missing and ending up leaning against Gee, his heart stopping for a moment before he reckoned that it would be more awkward if he moved.

"Hey." Gee poked him, holding out a full packet of Marlboro and passing it to Frank. "I can get some whenever I want - it's fine." Frank couldn't quite believe his luck, because fuck, not only did Gee look like sin itself in a miniskirt, and like The Smiths, but he was happy to give him free smokes, and Frank made a mental note to marry this guy in future.

"Fuck, I love you, dude." The words slipped from Frank's mouth before he could quite realise just what he'd said, and silence fell over the room as they shared a particularly awkward blush and Frank occupied himself with pushing the packet into the pocket of his jeans.

"Dude, you're fucking lucky - he gave you them for free and I have to pay Ray's brother fucking double, fuck man." Jamia sighed, snuggling up against Lindsey who was sharing very interesting glances with Gee from across the room.

"Does everyone smoke at fucking Catholic school? What the hell?" Gee exclaimed, giggling a little, and leaning just a little into Frank in the process in a not quite so accidental manner.

"Nah, Frankie and I just bonded over our knowledge of the only place to smoke at that place without getting caught." Jamia explained, watching the two of them with increasing suspicion, and she knew Frank would be an idiot if he wasn't expecting the endless interrogation that was bound to occur on the walk home.

"You know all I want to do with my life is set up a fucking off license where kids can get their smokes and shit when they need them because fuck, today has not been fun." Frank exclaimed, finishing his (well, Gee's) cigarette and not hesitating to start the new box he'd given him.

"So basically you want to be Bob Bryar?" Lindsey asked, giggling just a little. "No joke - that's exactly what he told the career's advisor, and he nearly got arrested for it too."

"Fuck, I'm so going to befriend him." Frank was suddenly so fucking glad that he'd gone along to this fucking 'social gathering' with Jamia yesterday.

"I thought you were getting them off me." Gee pouted, looking across at Frank in mock offensive and badly hidden jealousy. "I'm getting you them for free, too."

"For free?" Frank raised his eyebrows, knowing far too well by now that nothing in the world was free, but then again Gee was nothing like anyone he'd ever seen before. "Are you serious? Why?"

"Because, Frank Iero," He grinned, loving the way his full name sounded, "I like you."

Frank giggled, not even bothering to hide his blush this time, "Maybe, Gee..." He paused realising he didn't even know this guy's last name and he was already practically head over heels for him.

"Way. Gee Way." He finished for him.

"I like you too."

-


	4. Eat My Ass Kind Of Delicious

"Wouldn't expect you, of all people, to smoke, hey, Iero." A voice belonging to no other than Pete Wentz, caught Frank Iero like a deer in the headlights at the door of the boy's bathroom, and he really had no other option than to be spin on his heels and find himself face to face with a particularly smug looking Pete Wentz, holding up his box of Marlboro as if he was inspecting it.

And fuck, Frank really hoped he had the decency to give it him back, because as Frank had far too brutally discovered, cigarettes don't just grow on fucking trees. Well, if he ran out, it would give him an excuse to go and see Gee, but Frank hadn't quite decided if that was a good or bad decision yet, because there was really no denying that he was falling, hard, for the fucking dude in a miniskirt, and perhaps he just wanted to stop himself before things went wrong.

He was Frank Iero, this was Catholic school, his friends were homophobic as fuck, and seriously just about everything could, and most likely would go wrong, yet somehow, that only made him want Gee more. And Frank couldn't be stupid here, he was like the only other gay guy in this whole fucking town, and not only that, Gee wasn't at all far from perfect at all.

"Should watch your pockets, huh?" Pete added, smirking like the fucking Cheshire cat, and Frank was just relieved that he wasn't instantaneously offended or blackmailing him or something... well, yet. "Get some jeans with decent pockets, kid."

"Not my jeans." Frank replied, stepping towards Pete, in the false hope that he could somehow just grab his smokes and run, dealing with the inevitable consequences later.

"Never took you for a whore, Iero. Never took you for a lung cancer patient either, so, who knows, give it ten minutes you'll be a meth addict." Frank wasn’t all that keen upon the meth addict idea, much to Pete's surprise. "Now, come on, tell me, whose jeans are they?"

"Jamia's." Frank let out a sigh, knowing that Pete would get entirely the wrong end of the stick, but Frank played along regardless, caring more about that packet of Marlboro than his life right now. To say he was an addict would be an understatement right now.

"Thought she was a lesbian." Pete let out a casual comment, watching Frank's eyes as he waited for his response, and Frank couldn't help but assume he thought that he was a massive fucking homophobe like Mikey, and oh, if only thing knew, if they knew about his crush on the guy in the miniskirt, dear lord.

"She is." Frank confirmed, guessing that if Pete knew, than it was safe to confirm it, anyway, Jamia wasn't nearly quite as closeted as Frank was, but Frank of course, had mighty reason to be so.

"So you're one of those assholes that hates fags and loves lesbians then." Pete again, jumped to what was almost an ironic conclusion. "If you hate fags so much, I don't see why you'd want yours back at all." He chuckled, gesturing towards the packet of Marlboro, which Frank had gotten from the guy he wanted to call his boyfriend.

"I'm not a fucking homophobe, dude." Frank let out a sigh, leaning back against the wall, and wondering how the hell he was going to get out of this, or more relevantly how he was going to last the rest of the day without his smokes.

"Your best friend is Mikey Way - get real." Pete rolled his eyes, hovering the packet of Marlboro over the bin and Frank cringed at how his heartbeat quickened.

"Yeah, but you don't see me learning croquet to stare at girls on the netball team." Frank offered, wishing he could win the conversation over without admitting something he'd rather not.

"I don't, do I?" Pete smirked, "so do you like fags so much," he gestured to the cigarettes once again, "because you are a fag." And for once Pete Wentz was on the right track, not that Frank was in any hurry to admit that, of course.

And silence fell over the two of them as the fagless fag pondered over just what the hell he could respond to this with, without downright lying.

"Oh my god." Pete grinned, throwing the cigarettes back in Frank's direction, which caught them amidst a wide-eyed glance. "Never took you to be gay."

"I-I--..." Frank stuttered out and considered denying Pete’s accusations entirely, but knowing Pete's reputation, he decided that perhaps it would just be best to tell the truth here.

"Not gonna tell, don't worry." Pete grinned, tapping his nose and standing beside Frank in the empty bathroom. "I would love to see Mikey's face though, god you're screwed if he ever finds out - he'll probably try and execute you or something."

"Exorcise me, more like." Frank sighed, pulling a cigarette out the packet and hoping they weren't quite weird enough to put security cameras in the fucking bathrooms, and lighting the thing in front of Pete, who he assumed wouldn't tell about his fag addiction, and really that could be taken two ways, both of which were applicable.

"I told you, give it ten minutes - gonna be meth, Iero." Pete grinned, watching as the nicotine stick burned away between Frank's lips. Frank shrugged in response to Pete's words. "So Iero, how did you find out that you like up the ass?"

"Can we not...?" Frank blushed, his words mumbling around the cigarette in his mouth, and he couldn't help but wish that Pete Wentz wasn't just quite so annoying at times. Well, it certainly pissed Mikey off to an extreme, so in the long run, Frank reckoned it was worth it, but right now, he'd really rather he was left to smoke in peace.

"I thought if you were gay you would at least know how to speak with something in your mouth." Pete grinned like an absolute idiot, almost laughing at himself, and Frank considered shooting him, but Catholic school didn't really approve of you bringing guns in, so that plan didn't look all that fruitful.

"I thought if you valued your life, you'd learn that now would be a good time to shut the fuck up." Frank sighed, threatening the kid like it was nothing, because really it was, the kid couldn't take anything seriously.

"Don't threaten me, Iero. I'm practically drowning in things I can blackmail you with, hell, you might as well just fucking kiss me right now." Pete leaned over, pouting his lips in Frank's face and he couldn't help but move away, because not only was it kind of weird, Pete's breath didn't half smell.

"I'd rather not."

"Don't cockblock yourself, Iero. If I were you, I'd be sucking all I can get, a Catholic school in a Catholic town isn't famous for its gay population." Frank sighed, honestly not all that interested in Pete's life lesson's and by his retained =b, he really had noticed this already.

"Oh, believe me, I've noticed."

"I can try and hook you up, Iero." Pete grinned as Frank finished his cigarette, stubbing it out and foolishly disregarding the consequences, oh well, if they had CCTV in this bathroom, they'd most likely execute him for admitting he was gay, the smoking made utterly irrelevant in that situation.

"Again, I'd rather you not." Frank forced himself to suppress a blush as his mind instantly flickered to a certain guy in a miniskirt, whom he found himself more than just a little in love with.

"Oooh, you got someone then, Iero?" Pete smirked, his tone jokey at first, but as Frank didn't respond, his eyes widened extravagantly. "You have."

"Maybe I have, maybe I have."

-

"I still don't understand how you managed to get free smokes off some guy you barely know, for fuck's sake." Jamia let out a sigh, sending an envious glance in Frank's direction as he walked around the corner, a grin on his face and Gee's packet of Marlboro in his hand.

Frank giggled to himself as he lit his cigarette, his mind of course, flickering straight back to Gee, and his heart fluttering ridiculously in his chest. "I'm just great, Jamia, admit it."

"Whatever, Frankie, whatever. You can have as big of an ego as you'd like, but whatever happens, there are still going to be ten year olds that are taller than you." She smirked, smoking down her paid for smokes.

Frank knew where this packet had come from, simply Gee, yes, but he had this awful feeling that it was somehow something to do with that handjob and that he'd accidentally gotten himself involved in some sort of gay hooker ring or something. Frank knew it sounded crazy, but hot guys in miniskirts just did things like that to his head.

"Lindsey invited me over again after school, so you're good to go if you want to avoid 'Alicia's Ass Appreciation'." She commented casually, watching Frank's gaze drift off elsewhere, the corners of her lips pulling themselves up into a grin as she took notice of his rather bemused expression. "Frankie? Awake?"

"Fuck... yeah, yeah, sorry... I..." There was absolutely no dignity in the shade of red Frank's cheeks went as he noticed none other than Pete fucking Wentz walk out from between two bushes with a smirk upon his face.

"What the fuck, dude?" Jamia exclaimed, her eyes widening, before she came to the realisation that someone had just seen her smoking, and her eyes practically fell from their pre widened sockets. "Fuck-"

"It's fine, if you want to catch lung cancer, fine with me." Pete smirked, stepping forward and grabbing Frank by the arm, who nearly dropped his precious, perhaps explicitly acquired cigarette in the process, his face only reddening further.

"Pete-" Frank hissed in response, tightening his fingers around the cigarette to stop it dropping from his grasp, but of course burning himself in the process. "Ah, fuck!"

"Wake up, Frankie, you can't daydream about mystery boy forever." If Frank didn't have a gun, he was pretty sure he'd settle for strangling Pete right now.

"Mystery boy?" Jamia jerked up, pulling herself up from where she leant against the wall, almost as if the idea of Frank actually finding someone was a pre programmed source of excitement for her.

"Oh she doesn't know who he is either?" Pete chuckled, shaking his head. "Not only do you look like a fifth grader, but now you're acting like one." He added with a wonderful grin, which Frank interpreted as asking for his own murder.

"What?" Jamia continued as Frank considered burning himself with the cigarette just so he had an excuse to get the absolute fuck out of the situation.

"Frankie's got a crush-" More like Frankie's going to be on a murderous rampage pretty soon if you don't shut the fuck up, Frank added silently.

"So that's how you're getting the cigarettes for free- it's that Gee, guy- oh my god, you have a crossdressing kink-" Jamia exclaimed practically choking on cigarette smoke in her sheer amusement and utter disbelief.

"Gee? The dude who wears the miniskirts and lives with an asshole in a bungalow, also pretty good friends with a drug dealer, who seems to be looking more for friendship and acceptance than money?" Pete's jaw dropped as Jamia nodded in response.

"Oh sweet Jesus, Frankie, you really can't date him." Pete threw himself back against the wall shaking his head in absolute denial.

"How do you even know him?" Jamia asked, her brow furrowed, unsuspectful that many Catholic school students would be all that aware of people like Gee, Bert, and Bob.

"His friend who gets him the miniskirts, she got me some bass strings when mine snapped once and I am forever in her debt- my dad doesn't know I play, you see-" Pete began, but in the kindest way possible, no one really cared about his bass playing anecdote regarding his father.

"That's my girlfriend." Jamia exclaimed, her face then relaxing and contorting into a smirk, "better be nice, Pete, unless you want to prove that you really are forever in debt." Trust Jamia Nestor to always use a good blackmail opportunity.

"Wait... why can't I date him?" Frank finally spoke, having recovered from his utter state of 'oh god, yes the god I don't believe in, please kill me', and glanced up at the two of them with an awkwardly faked smile and a terrible compulsion to grab another cigarette.

"Because, Frank Iero," Pete turned around, letting out a sigh, "that's Mikey Way's older brother."

What?

Oh fuck.

Gee Way.

Fuck.

To put it lightly, Frank was pretty screwed right now.

-

"Frank, I've barely even talked you in the past week and you won't even listen to me right now." Mikey rolled his eyes as he sat down in the seat beside Frank, glancing at the supply teacher who stood rather nervously in front of the classroom, labelling him as a pushover, and grabbing his phone out, proceeding to converse with someone who wasn't Frank, someone who didn't have a crush on his older, crossdressing brother.

To say that things between him and Mikey had been uncomfortably awkward since Pete had just so casually dropped the bombshell just a few hours ago would have been an understatement.

Frank had barely even spoken to his friend, and Mikey was beginning to take notice. Frank was just beyond relieved that as long as Pete kept his mouth shut, and with Jamia's blackmail he ought to, Mikey hadn't an inkling as to what was keeping his friend so silent.

Fortunately, Mikey had developed a skill to just talk at people, without a regard for whether they were listening or not, which Frank reckoned had stemmed from his tendency to talk about nothing beside Alicia Simmons and the way she looked in a miniskirt.

And Frank hated at how he mentally responded to the word miniskirt with thoughts of Gee- Gee Way, Mikey's brother. This was so messed up. He had to choose between his friendship with Mikey and the idea of a relationship with some guy in a miniskirt he'd just met, and stupidly fallen in love with. He had to choose between lying to his best friend and fucking a hot guy.

Fuck, he was lying to Mikey anyway, everyday and he couldn't help it - he was lying to Mikey about being straight every goddamn second and there was really nothing he could do about it, but seriously if the guy he was interested in was Mikey's fucking reject brother, Mikey's crossdressing brother, then surely the situation just couldn't get any worse, or at least for his sanity's sake, he most certainly hoped not.

"Mum texted me earlier, saying that he," Mikey drew his gaze up to meet mine, rolling his eyes as he clarified, "Gerard." Gee, Frank couldn't help but correct in his head. "Isn't coming over for Sunday dinner and church with us." Frank practically snorted at the notion of someone like Gee attending church, and then it dawned on him.

Frank was so fucking sorry for him, because in his mind he tried to fit Gee as he was into a family dinner with Mikey and his parents, and he didn't even want to do that, let alone know that the guy experienced it for the majority of his life. Fuck.

"He barely even lives here and we haven't seen him in weeks. What the fuck does he even think he's playing at? Fucking asshole." Mikey shook his head, and Frank couldn't help but shiver at the fact that no remorse or even worry for his brother's whereabouts were shown in his reaction.

"Aren't you worried about him?" Frank piped up, his voice timid and he already knew he shouldn't have but with all this shit going through his head he just couldn't help himself.

"He's a fag, Frank. I'm only worried that he's going to convert people into fags." Frank scoffed and he really wanted to answer his 'best friend' back with a snarky comment, but he knew that he and Mikey were friends for one reason and that was because neither of them had any other friends, besides Ray, of course.

Frank mentally spited Mikey, by telling himself that if things did work like that, that Gee would have definitely converted him into a fag. That seemed to be enough, and he didn't even have to hide his smirk because Mikey reckoned he was laughing at the painfully homophobic insult towards his brother. If only he fucking knew.

"They'll probably kick him out for real if he doesn't come back soon." Mikey turned back to his phone, texting what was of course Alicia, who sat across the room, doing an awfully good job of ignoring her messages and talking to her friends about anything but Mikey Way.

"I doubt he wants to come back, you know." Frank added, trying his best to involve himself in the conversation but not involve himself to the level he ended up defending Gee or something, because even Frank knew that was a stupid idea.

"Why the fuck not? My parents are good people, good Christian people, they work hard and provide a warm house, a bed, and food on the table. And he'd rather sleep out on the streets?" Mikey pulled a disgusted face. "I knew fags were disgusting creatures but I doubted they'd rather live in filth and rat shit."

Frank let out a sigh, trying not punch Mikey or do anything equally as reckless, but fuck, this was hard, because he couldn't help but worry about Gee and just how the fact that he feels best in a miniskirt and grew up with strictly Catholic and homophobic parents could have affected his mental stability.

And by now, Frank's decided, because from the things Mikey's said, from the absolute shit Mikey’s said, he knows he'd take pleasure in lying to him, and if anything, Gee needs him more now, and really he needs Gee.

So that was why when the bell chimed out for lunch, Frank lied and told Mikey he was going to go take a piss, when in reality he was making a fucking stupid decision, and skipping school to go and find some fucking guy in a miniskirt. He'd even take pleasure in the fact that the detention he'd get would sufficiently get him out of Alicia's Ass Appreciation tomorrow.

-

By the time Frank had arrived at the bungalow, he was panting a little, having practically stormed down the streets, doing his best to avoid all teachers on their lunch breaks and not get caught at all costs, and he was pretty certain he was just a little sweaty right now, but he didn't care, he just needed to fucking talk to Gee, see him at the very least.

"Frankie!" A voice exclaimed as the door was swung open, Frank's eyes practically rolling back in their sockets as they met the red veined ones of Bob Bryar. "Want some weed, dude, we got plenty?" Bob hiccupped and Frank really fucking hoped that if Gee wasn't here he could excuse himself and get away because he really didn't want to involve himself in a weed orgy with Bob Bryar.

"Bob, stop trying to sell weed to people at the fucking door, you'll get yourself-" The voice came to a halt as the person it belonged to came to the door, standing behind Bob and locking eyes with Frank.

"Gee!" Frank practically let out a sigh of relief and Bob raised his eyebrows, putting up both hands in a mock surrender and shaking his head.

"I can tell when I'm not wanted." The blonde slurred his words before stumbling just a little as he turned away and walked back into the bungalow.

"Frankie, are you okay- what's wrong? Why are you here? It's school hours.. I.." And that was when Frank noticed that Gee wasn't wearing any pants, and not only was he not wearing any pants; he wasn't wearing any underwear either. And Frank really wasn't complaining.

"Your penis and your lipgloss really don't match." Frank let out a sigh, making no secret of his eyes prolonged presence downstairs.

Gee blushed in response, "I... I... ugh, yeah. I wasn't really expecting guests. It was just last time Bob was high enough to try and sell weed to someone at the door, it was an old woman from next door and what can I say other than they've moved out now." He ran a hand through his hair, glancing downwards and really wishing he'd put on some fucking pants at the very least.

"I don't think showing them your dick would have improved the situation at all, Gee." Frank smirked up at him and Gee simply shook his head, gesturing for Frank to come in, because he didn't really want to be arrested for indecent exposure.

"Why are you here?" Gee asked, blushing a little as he spoke, "not that I don't want you here- I..."

"I want to talk, Gee, is that okay?" Frank pulled his lips into a smile, glancing up at Gee and trying not to curse the Way family for entirety because fuck, this guy was obviously a mess, and it was their fault.

"Yeah, sure." He smiled in response, awkwardly pulling his far too short, tightly fitted shirt down in an attempt to cover himself. "Let's go to my room, it's best to get away from Bob Bryar's weed orgies before they kick off and I should probably put some pants on."

"I don't mind." Frank added, winking just a little. "Not like I haven't seen it before." Gee just shook his head in response.

"Be nice, Iero, or you won't be seeing it again."

-

Gee was most certainly self conscious of changing with Frank in the room, even more so than he was with the younger boy seeing him half naked, which was really rather an odd predicament. Gee could only reckon it was to do with the clothes he was putting on himself and the fact that Frank seemed to care him about him equally, looking like a boy or looking like girl... and even when he resembled neither.

Gee had difficulty understanding that, especially with the fact that such caring and affection had come from someone with pretty much the same background as his own brother, who had done nothing but reject as he tried to be himself.

He almost found himself blushing as he came to realise that he'd been staring at his own reflection in the mirror for far too long, settling on a black leather miniskirt and pulling it up over his practically none existent hips in order to loosely tuck the faded grey shirt into it. He'd slipped the panties Lindsey had gotten him on underneath whilst Frank hadn't been paying all that much attention and he could help but feel good about himself like this, it was kind of childish in the fact that a good part of the bubbly ecstatic feeling was due to the spite of his own parents, but Gee shrugged, reckoning they deserved it.

"You look great, don't worry, I mean it's only me, we're not going anywhere anyway." Frank stuttered out, his breath hitching as Gee smiled at him through the mirror, because fuck he did look amazing and almost effortlessly so.

"I like to look pretty, Frankie. Makes me feel good." Gee sighed, turning to face the seventeen year old who stood in his bedroom in black skinny jeans and a scruffed up school shirt, the tie hanging loosely around his neck and the blazer discarded somewhere on the floor.

"And what do you mean, only you? You're really important, Frankie, don't forget that." He stepped forward, grabbing Frank's school tie and tugging it from his neck, and Frank prayed that Gee didn't feel his increased heartbeat as his hands pressed up against his chest.

"You skipped school to see me, I have a horrible feeling this is important." He sighed, folding up Frank's tie and placing it on the bed and folding the blazer in a similar fashion before putting it down beside the tie.

"I really needed to see you." Frank let out a sigh, knowing that Gee was so much more than a free supply of smokes, so much more than the guy in the miniskirt, and so, so, so much more than just Mikey's brother. He was beautiful. "You're really important too."

"Nah, Frankie." Gee shook his head, raising his hand and brushing Frank's fringe from his face and tucking the black locks behind his ear, and Frank seriously could have sworn he spent those twenty seconds without a single breath. "All I am is a high school graduate who just mooches off his 'friends'. I don't even pay rent. Bert just lets me live here." Gee sighed, not wanting to remember the real reason Bert had let him stay here at first.

"You're important to me then." Frank whispered, his eyes meeting the hazel ones of guy he desperately wanted to kiss right now. "I... I..." Frank blushed, blinking rapidly for a moment as he came to realise that he was thought to mouth barrier had almost collapsed on itself right there.

"You?" Gee asked, his lips parting perfectly in order to issue his response and Frank couldn't take it anymore, he just leaned in and kissed him before he could stop himself.

Gee was startled at first, because oh god, Frank Iero was kissing him, the perfect seventeen year old he was in love with was kissing him, and Jesus fuck why wasn't he kissing back already? Gee's breath hitched as Frank only deepened the kiss as he reciprocated and suddenly Gee knew what Frank wanted to say moments ago, and suddenly that didn't matter quite so much anymore.

"That was so different to when I sucked you off a few days ago. This is different, isn't it?" Gee caught the younger boy's gaze momentarily before sitting down on the end of his bed, his legs hanging over the edge and reaching the floor as Gee was very conscious of the fact that he was wearing a leather miniskirt.

"Yeah, this is." Frank breathed out, the weigh of admittance springing almost unexpectedly from his shoulders. Gee tossed him a smile, gesturing towards the spot next to him on the bed and Frank silenced every nerve in his body that told him not to.

"This is the I think I'm falling in love with you kiss." Frank exclaimed, more to the ceiling than the boy beside him, falling out across Gee's bed an occupying himself with everything but the reaction he was dreading.

"I've got to say that falling in love with me was a stupid decision, Frankie." Gee finally released his words into the silence and Frank sat up with a start, locking his eyes with the older boy.

"What are you saying?" He asked, furrowing his brows and trying not to cry when he heard the thing he wanted to hear the least.

"I'm saying that in the opinion of my common sense that was a stupid decision of yours. We're worlds away- Frank let me finish." Gee's tone turned stern as he let out a sigh, unconvinced that the seventeen year old could shut up for more than a few seconds at once. "And yet you're the only person who's ever seen me for me and it's just so weird, you don't care whether I look like a boy or a girl or a horrible mess between the two, and you barely even know anything about me yet it feels like you know it all. And my heart tells me that letting myself fall for you, kissing you a few minutes ago, those were the best decisions I've ever made, but my head, my common sense-"

"Don't listen to your head, listen to your heart." Frank sat up to face Gee and reached out, pressing one hand up against his chest, feeling his heartbeat through his shirt. "Beating pretty fast, huh?" Frank could help but comment with a grin and Gee's blush was to die for.

"I want to let this happen, but there's so much that you don't know about me, and I don't want you know, I can't keep hoping that you'll understand me if you know everything, Frankie, you're only seventeen and I don't want to put anything on you that'll fuck you up."

"Then don't put rejection on me." Frank sighed, watching Gee's gaze flicker downwards. He pulled at his skirt, stopping it from riding up, a smile passing over his lips as he remembered the panties. The smile soon flickered back into a frown as he was pulled back into reality with Frank's words. "I understand more than you think."

"Frank-" Gee began, but Frank pressed one finger to the older boy's lips.

"Let me speak this time." Frank sighed, not wanting to watch the reaction in the other boy's eyes as he continued. "I found out who your brother is today. Well, I found out that he was your brother, which was really something I would have never expected, and then I realised that you're this 'Gerard'," Frank couldn't help but notice how he flinched at that name, "his big brother who he 'hates' so much, and I couldn't help but imagine you, you as you are in the same family as them, sat at Mrs Way's dining table, even I can't manage Sunday dinners with them. And today Mikey, he was annoyed that you hadn't been home for weeks, and he wasn't even upset or worried about you, he was just pissed off, like you were a pair of trainers he'd lost or something and I..."

Frank couldn’t finish, simply shaking his head and trying not to cry as his head was hit with a tidal wave of memories, consisting of every thing Mikey's ever said about Gerard, ever said about Gee. Fuck.

"You understand this all, fuck how do you, fuck?" Gee stood up, letting out an enormous sigh and grabbing his box of cigarettes from off the window sill, grabbing one and then throwing the box down onto the bed before lighting his own. "Have one, it's fine." He directed his words casually in Frank's direction, before turning around with his lit cigarette in his mouth and watching as Frank lit his own with a lighter he pulled from his pocket.

"Like, even now you found out my real name, you still call me Gee because that's what I asked you to. Jesus fuck, how do you even know Mikey Way though, you're you, and he's him?" Gee sighed, sitting back down beside Frank with his cigarette.

"I figured someone in a miniskirt might not be referring to themselves by a particularly masculine name for a reason. Mikey, unfortunately, is my friend, on the basis that neither of us are doing very well in the friendship department otherwise." Frank explained, blowing smoke in Gee's direction and giggling a little. "Also might be because I'm not actually Catholic, nor is my mum."

"What the fuck are you, someone as fucking gay and understanding as you doing in a Catholic school then?" Gee exclaimed, playfully blowing smoke back at Frank. "Stop blowing smoke at me, you ass." He added in reference to the smoky clouds Frank had him choking on.

"My mum's husband at the time was some sort of classy business fuck, suggested it would give me 'a better start in life' or whatever the fuck that meant, so I got into Catholic school but by the time I actually started there, he'd divorced her because he didn't agree with her adopting like four rescue dogs or something, and anyway, we only ended up getting one. He was a douche." Frank explained all too casually, as he came to realise just how weird his family background was.

"'Husband at the time?'" Gee raised his eyebrows. "How many husbands has your mum had?"

"Seven." Frank answered, giggling at his own words just a little. "She thinks either the second or the third one was my dad, but she's not sure, she doesn't even know if she was married to my dad at all." Frank really was a horrible Catholic.

"Daddy issues, Frankie?" Gee smirked, pulling one leg up onto the bed, pulling his skirt further up his thighs in the process. "Next thing you'll be gay, honey." He winked at me, giggling.

"I told you I understand, Gee." Frank added, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out in the ashtray Gee had brought over.

"Yeah, me and my traditional Catholic family and you with your seven stepdads." Gee shook his head, grinning to himself as he finished his own cigarette, grabbing the box and ashtray and getting up from the bed and bending over to put them away in a drawer, unaware just how far his skirt had ridden up.

Frank however was painfully aware, smirking at the view of half of Gee's ass, and what could be nothing but fucking panties underneath. "Pull up your skirt, you whore." Frank whispered, getting up and standing behind Gee, who blushed a terrible red, standing up to pull his skirt down, only to have Frank's hands already at the zips and pulling the thing down his legs, revealing Gee's panties entirely.

"I..." Gee blushed, his eyes falling down to his skirt on the floor.

"You look so good in panties." Frank whispered, forcing his gaze to meet Gee's, his eyes almost automatically pulling themselves downwards.

"Only good?" Gee asked, regaining his confidence in an utterly narcissistic manner, almost fawning into Frank's compliment.

"Gorgeous, fucking hot." Frank corrected himself.

"What about delicious, Frankie?"

"What do you mean, delicious?"

"I mean eat my ass kind of delicious."

-


	5. Bob Bryar The Weed Leprechaun

"Of course you're here." Frank jumped at the sound of Jamia's voice, not only did every nerve in his body turn on end, but he felt himself physically move away from Gee also. It wasn't as if they were even doing anything particularly noteworthy, it was really just the look Frank and Jamia shared that explained everything.

"You want a smoke?" Gee asked, awkwardly offering up his box of Marlboro in some form of distraction from the fact that he was sat on his bed with her seventeen year old best friend.

"I'm good, had one on the way here." She answered the older boy in a calm tone before turning to Frank and practically channelling Satan himself through her words. "What the actual fuck do you think you're doing, Frank Iero? Like there's the face value of this situation, and then there's Mikey and Ray and the fact that you've got a detention tomorrow, also the school called your mum so she's worried as to where the fuck you are, and it's not as if I could've told her you were skipping school to fuck a cross dresser- sorry, Gee... I..."

"It's fine." He smiled in response, far too distracted by the fact that he'd just been referred to as Frank Iero's boyfriend, which was something he was far too okay with.

"He's not my boyfriend and we didn't fuck, Jamia. We-" Frank began, trying to explain the situation to his friend whilst trying not to freak the fuck out because his mum was definitely going to at least consider grounding him, and sneaking out was always such a fucking effort.

"You what?" Jamia let out a sigh, sitting down on the bed between the two of them. "Fucking hormonal teenage boys, man."

"Actually, I'm twenty five." Gee piped up, he wasn't sure for what reason other than childishly proving a point. Frank however was rather taken aback by that fact, as it really began to sink in that he was twenty five, one of his stepdads had been twenty five when his mum married him, fuck.

"My mum married a twenty five year old once." Frank suddenly found himself speaking aloud before he could stop himself, and just turned a horrible shade of red. Thankfully Gee was in hysterical laughter, falling back against the bed, and for Frank, Jamia felt like a real fucking cockblock right now.

"The one from Thailand? Wasn't he like pagan or something?" Jamia asked as Gee slowly pulled himself back up from the foetal position on the bed.

"Buddhist." Frank corrected her, shrugging slightly and reaching for Gee's packet of Marlboro.

"You're going to get lung cancer at this rate, Iero." She rolled her eyes and shook her head in a manner of almost maternal disappointment. "Also, pass me one."

"Hypocrite." Frank declared as he passed her the box. "So how pissed is my mum on a scale of one to ten?" He threw the words casually into the air.

"Just turn on your phone and fucking call her - your mum's cool, she should be fine. It's seriously Mikey you should be worried about, Pete's told him you've run off to join a Mexican gang or something. School are pissed but you'll just get detention, that's all." Jamia rolled her words off casually, until she suddenly came to realise just who she'd mentioned Mikey in front of. "Fuck.."

"We talked, Jamia. He knows all of that." Frank explained as Gee blushed, taking the packet of Marlboro and lighting his own.

"And you're okay with that?" She turned to Gee, who appeared just a little flustered to be addressed quite so directly regarding the subject of his brother.

"Yeah, it's just Frank, he understands, and no one's ever done that before..." He let out a sigh, meeting Frank's eyes momentarily as he placed the cigarette between his lips and lit it with the lighter he retrieved form his pocket.

"Fucking hormonal teenagers, I told you both." Jamia sighed, getting up and only then taking notice of the leather miniskirt Gee was wearing. "I like the skirt." She commented and Gee hit her with the biggest smile she'd ever seen, because really, he'd been needing the confidence boost for a good few minutes now.

"Thanks."

"Right, come on, Frankie, you've got to call your mum before she gets the police involved and try and convince Mikey Way that you're not in a Mexican gang." She let out a sigh, gesturing towards the younger boy, whose attention was rather obviously fixated upon Gee.

"She's right, Frankie, look, hey, I'll uhh... give you my number, okay?" Gee offered, placing his cigarette between his lips and reaching for a sharpie on the bedside table. He grabbed Frank's arm, scribbling a series of digits onto the slightly tanned flesh he'd exposed by rolling up his sleeve. "There you go," He rolled the sleeve down as he finished. "Text me later, Frankie. I wish you the best of luck." 

And that was what kept a stupidly smug grin on Frank Iero's face for the next few hours at the very least.

-

"You're absolutely smitten with him." Jamia announced as the two of them walked out of the bungalow and onto the road. Frank, of course, couldn't help but blush in response.

"I-I..." Frank struggled to put the words together. "I wouldn't say that, I mean like him, of course, but-"

"I've seen the way you fucking look at him, Frank." Jamia let out a sigh as Frank pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and put in an estimate at the amount of missed calls he was about to receive. "You look at him like he's this fucking elusive perfect thing that you can't even believe is real."

"I don't know, Jamia, he just likes The Smiths and looks really fucking good in a miniskirt." Frank sighed, widening his eyes at his phone screen. "Seven missed calls - is that one for all of my stepdads then?" He closed the notification and went straight into contacts, putting Gee's number into his phone before it rubbed off or something.

"You're putting his number in before you call your mum." Jamia noted the obvious, completely in disbelief of how in love he was. "You're worse than Mikey, I swear."

"I guess we just both share very strong feelings regarding miniskirts and The Smiths." Frank shrugged, pocketing his phone, his eyes widening as he found them set on a figure stood at the start of his road. "Fuck, that's Mikey. He's going to interrogate me about Mexican gangs, fuck, fuck Pete, seriously- well not seriously, but-"

"Calm down, I was over exaggerating. As if anyone ever listens to a word that kid says." Jamia smiled, turning to Frank. "Look I better go, you know he hates me, and he'll already be pissed with you just for talking to me, so yeah, remember to text me too - I want to know if you survive this."

Fuck. Frank sighed to himself as he approached his 'best friend' and tried not to focus on the fact that his older brother had asked him to eat him out just over an hour ago, because if his brain to mouth filter broke down like that, things really could not go well.

"So, Frank, you care to explain where the fuck you've been?" Mikey shouted as he approached him and Frank couldn't help but panic because fuck he had absolutely no answer for him, because in this case, the truth really would not do. "I saw you with Jamia, what the fuck? Pete even said you joined a gang, but he's a fucking twat, so I guess that's not true."

"Jamia's my friend, Mikey." Frank let out a sigh, praying that the news that she liked girls more than just a little hadn't reached him yet.

"She's a lesbian." Mikey said in a hushed whisper which pretty much made Frank sick to his stomach, and quite honestly, he really wanted to scream out in response, 'and yeah I'm a fucking gaylord.' But he doubted that Mikey would appreciate the comedic value behind his totally true statement. "You can't date her, Frank."

Frank laughed in his face at that one. "I don't want to date her, Mikey. I don't know where you got that from though, because I didn't know that." He also reckoned probably should feel a little more remorse when it came to lying straight to his best friends face, but this was one of those times when he physically could not tell the truth.

"Pete told me that, so I guess, you have a point." Thank the fucking lord Frank didn't believe in for Pete Wentz's idiotic reputation, because it had already saved his ass twice today. "Where the hell were you though?"

"Just felt like bunking, you know, you just cannot fucking deal with school and fucking assholes for one minute longer. It was a stupid decision, but yeah, not much I can do about that now." Frank continued to shrug another lie, finding it all too fucking simple now.

"My mum would kill me, you know." Mikey sighed, laughing a little now. "You better appreciate that you have a really relaxed mum, seriously."

"Yeah, I guess, I'll tell you how it went tomorrow or something." Frank offered, not all that keen upon texting Mikey tonight - his brother was where his attention was focused right now. And seriously Frank was glad Mikey Way wasn't a mind reader because if he knew that Frank was thinking about his older brother in a miniskirt right now, he probably would have punched him right in the face.

"Yeah, see you, Frank- wait, where's your blazer?" Mikey stopped himself, as he was about to leave, pointing at Frank's plain school shirt.

Fuck.

"I don't know, man." Frank's eyes widened and he walked past Mikey as fast as he possibly could, never wanting to get home quite so fast before.

The thing is Frank did know where his blazer was.

Frank Iero's blazer was still left on Gee's bedroom floor.

-

"Frank Iero, where the hell do you think you've been?" His mum called out, standing in the hallway and raising her eyebrows at her son like she hadn't just been texting her friend Ingrid about running away when Frank turned eighteen and going to live a life as strippers for the Russian Mafia. Linda Iero was really not a conventional woman.

"And where's your blazer?" She asked, gesturing towards the obvious abundance of the horribly oversized black thing thrown over his shoulders and weighing them down enough to force him to hunch his back a little.

"Mum, I-" Frank began, kicking his converse off and stepping forward.

"Nope, you don't leave the hall without an explanation. What the hell happened to you? Skipping school? Even Jamia didn't know where you were, and she's like the Robin to your Batman." Trust Mrs Iero to make Batman references regarding her sons friends.

"I met a guy." Frank let out a sigh, knowing that unlike in the case of Mikey Way, with his mum, the truth was the only thing that was going to do.

"Oh my god." She exclaimed, her jaw almost detaching from the rest of her face. "Right come on, I'm putting some coffee on, you are going to tell me all about him."

Frank had to laugh at that, "you can't act like a proper mum for more than a minute can you?'

"I can send you to your room and ground you if you prefer." She offered with a smirk.

"Yeah, coffee's fine." Frank sighed, making his way over to the sofa and awaiting the coffee and interrogation from his mum, which really would last an hour at minimum, which would of course leave Jamia to think he was dead if he didn't text her, but he couldn't text Jamia without texting Gee and that would get him nowhere.

"So, what's his name and tell me why he's important enough for you to skip half a school day." Mrs Iero placed the coffee down on the coffee table and turned to her son, amusing herself more than a mother should with the rather obvious that inhabited his face.

Frank let out a sigh, almost laughing aloud as he remembered their conversation in which she'd practically dragged him out the closet – in a metaphorical sense of course. "He's Mikey Way's older brother."

"Fuck!" Mrs Iero exclaimed, not bothering to correct her language at all. "I mean, I but I- I wasn't goddamn serious, Frank." She shook her head, grabbing her mug of coffee and occupying herself with it.

"He likes The Smiths, mum." Frank explained, choosing to ignore his crossdressing habits until his mother got used to the idea of him crushing hard on Mikey's brother.

"Alright, I'm listening." She announced, putting the mug back down. "What's his name?"

"Gee. He gave me his number today-"

"Then what are you waiting for? Go on, go," She gestured towards the stairs, "go to your room, Frank Iero!" She pulled on her best maternal voice, "and go text the older brother of your best friend who you really shouldn't have a crush on, but of course, you do."

Frank did not need telling twice, to say the least.

-

Bert McCracken was most definitely not the most compassionate of people, but when he walked into the kitchen, with the intentions of grabbing that six pack of beer from the cupboard, and really hoping that he could stop Bob from drinking all of this as well, otherwise he'd have to get him out of his house pretty soon, because Bert was not the kind of guy for cleaning up vomit, and when he saw none other than housemate sat on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest and his phone discarded on the floor beside him as he sobbed into his hands, he couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy.

He was not in a good state right now, to say the very least.

"Gee?" Bert let his voice out in soothing tone, sinking down to sit beside his rather distraught looking housemate, who seemed completely oblivious to Bert's words. "What's wrong, dude?" He tried again, putting an arm around the crying guy and subconsciously pulling him in closer to himself, and Bert let out an almost out of character sigh of relief as Gee happily leaned against his shoulder, burying his face into Bert's chest.

"Tell me what's wrong, hey?" Bert tried once more, brushing Gee's dark, messy hair from his face and rubbing soothing circles into his back, wondering just how much longer he could manage to keep this sympathetic thing going for, because if Bert knew anything, it was that this was most certainly not his forte.

"Family." Gee choked out, his words mumbling against Bert's shirt, who couldn't help but let out a deep sigh as the all too familiar topic of family crossed his mind.

Bert had disconnected from his family entirely, even moving across the country to get away from them, in a move which some may deem heartless, but Bert knew that if anyone was heartless, it was his family if they were treating him like that, and Bert hadn't looked back since.

Gee however, had a harder time running away from his family, well in an emotional sense - they still had his phone number, and legally he still lived with them, and he basically just having a horribly extended sleepover at Bert's house, forever.

Gee often amused himself with how much his parents would go absolutely batshit if they ever saw who he was living with and how this house worked, or even just the miniskirts in his wardrobe, that’d be enough really. The icing on the cake, perhaps.

"And what do those fuckheads want now?" Bert asked, trying not to be awkward about just how he aware and uncomfortable he was with the fact that Gee was crying right into his shirt and it'd probably have snot or something on it pretty soon.

"Want me to go over for dinner, basically my mum's spent ages bitching at me about how I'm never there and there's fucking reason why I'm not there, doesn't she ever think?" Gee snapped out, picking up his phone, unlocking it and passing it to Bert, who widened his eyes as he read the few lines of caps lock from Gee's mother displayed on the screen.

"You should go, but go in a dress and stockings and heels and a full face of make up with your hair curled and then ask her why she's not pleased to see you." Bert added, chuckling to himself and trying not to get just a little turned on from the mental image of that, because to say that his friend didn't make an attractive woman would be a downright lie.

"That'll go down well, I assume." Gee shook his head with a sigh, pocketing his phone and getting up, leaving Bert to sit there awkwardly on the floor by himself for a moment before he copied Gee's actions and made his way to the cupboard, grabbing the beer he'd originally came in for.

"You're with Bob, aren't you?" Gee asked, watching as Bert retrieved another pack of beer from the cupboard and knew that no one else could really drink all that much in a few hours.

"Yeah, you're welcome to join our beer and fifa gathering, but you're a fucking pansy who's generally quite shit at fifa, to put it nicely, of course." He got up, adding a smile to his words as he held the six-pack in both hands whilst still trying to look macho whilst doing so.

Gee couldn't quite understand why he'd ever need to even attempt to look macho in front of a guy wearing a miniskirt, simply the fact that Bert wasn't wearing make up already made him look like a fucking wrestler.

"Nah, I wasn't planning on interrupting you two, I was just wondering if Bob had anything on him - I'm really in need of a fix right now with my family and all." Gee gestured awkwardly as he spoke, whilst also making sure he appreciated that Bert was the kind of guy that never gave a fuck and sometimes even encouraged Gerard getting absolutely fucked up.

"Of course dude, it's Bob." Bert added with a loud burst of laughter, "and on the plus side, he's probably drunk enough to give it you for free by now."

"He's really less of our drug dealer and more of just our friend by now, Bert." Gee pointed out the obvious, knowing that Bob was at their bungalow at least five days a week these days.

Bert shrugged in response, "yeah, I guess he is, but I'm not going to tell him that right now, because he's awfully keen on giving us free weed for inviting him to shit and if we're 'friends' then he's going to get all pissy and demand that he should just be allowed to come regardless."

"You're basically taking advantage of him there." Gee pointed out, trying to ignore his moral compass right now, because morals were generally useless in Bert's eyes and Gee wasn't in the mood to engage in any sort of argument right now.

"And you getting free shit off him because he's pissed off his tits, isn't it?" Bert smirked, raising an eyebrow in his housemate's direction.

"Bertie, you get the beeeeeeerr?" Bob stumbled into the kitchen, seeming to have left his shirt in the living room and exposing his uncomfortably hairy beer belly, which was something Gee tried his best not to focus on, despite it being rather in your face.

"Yeah, I got the beer!" Bert exclaimed with a sense of almost faked enthusiasm and Gee couldn't help but let a snort out, gaining a horrific death glare from Bert in response, which he really reckoned he'd be paying for later, but right now he really could not care.

"Goood!" Bob let this absolutely ridiculous grin fall over his face and seriously he was beyond pissed. "Heey Gee!" He exclaimed in Gee's direction who passed him an awkward smile in response, mainly just for the sake of acknowledging his presence.

"Oh yeah, Gee wants to know if you got any shit he can have." Bert offered, noticing just how socially incompetent his housemate was being, and he was generally just a little tired of standing awkwardly in the kitchen and comforting him, and in Bert's mind, the sooner he pissed off and got high, the better.

"Yeah, duudee I got plenty of pot, like I found of a pot of pot, like a pot of gold y'know with the leprechauns and shit but not gold, pot, like a weed leprechaun, I mean I'm probably a weed leprechaun aren't I? I've gotta beard and shit, granted I'm not Irish, but y'know I don't think anyone's really Irish, like I think all the UK people just have different accents to confuse you and sorta scare us 'mericans cause they know they got the good shit and they don't want us stealing their land and-"

"Yeah Bob, that's, ugh nice and all, but I don't want weed, I was wondering if you had anything stronger..." Gee trailed off, ignoring Bert's raised eyebrows from the corner of his eyes.

"Yeah, sure got some pills, man, don't know what they do really, but they probably do something, so you know. Try your luck, dude. Don't sue me if you die, etc. yada, yada- also, very important! If you do, end up in hospital, hypothetically speaking, of course, and they ask where you got this shit from, you don't say Bob Bryar." Bob rattled on about just about everything nobody cared about as he dug into his pockets and pulled out a little zip lock bag with several pills of different colours and shapes in the bottom.

"You say The Weed Leprechaun." Bert added with a chuckle. "That'll confuse 'em, possibly get you admitted to a mental hospital in the process, but worth it, in my opinion."

"I don't know exactly what's in that bag," Bob added in a really very worrying manner as he handed Gee the bag, however the miniskirt-clad guy, really was not in a state to care about his own safety right now at all. "It's kind of like a pick 'n' mix, but without the haribos, that's kinda sad actually - haribos are the best bit-"

"Yeah, Bob." Bert let out a sigh, "Gee's going now he's got his shit, isn't he?" Gee shot Bert a questionable glance, and then the beer clutching guy mouthed 'run before he asks you to pay' at him, and then Gee needed convincing no more.

"Yeah, I probably have, yeah. I mean, I'm very busy, yes."

Honestly, Gee had no idea where he was going, but he was also kind of broke, so he reckoned that perhaps getting on the outskirts of the park wasn't all that bad if he got to do it for free. He just hoped he could find his way home afterwards.

-

Patrick Stump was very similar to Ray Toro in quite and very kind nature, but plus the glasses and minus the afro, and, unbeknownst to Ray, minus the drug dealing older brother. Patrick also had been born with the absolutely god like quality of being able to put up with Pete Wentz for periods of time longer than a few minutes, and that was exactly how they had ended up as best friends - Pete had the annoying habit of clinging on to people, and when they let him, there was really no hope of ever shaking him off.

And Patrick really didn't like to point things out in a manner that made people uncomfortable, but it was coming to the point where Pete's crush on Mikey Way was becoming almost annoyingly obvious to his shy best friend.

Patrick had guessed that Pete was at least bisexual for a few years now - Patrick was the kind of guy that actually listened to what you said, no matter how long you went on talking for, and really some of the shit that came out of Pete's mouth, especially late at night, was not at all heterosexual, in the slightest.

"You know, Patrick, did I ever tell you that Mikey is a real fucking ass, you know I was talking to him the other day and he was just being such a homophobic asshole, like how the fuck can he be? I heard his brother's a fucking cross dresser, you know? I also heard that Frank-" Pete stopped himself at that moment, Jamia's blackmail threats coming to the front of his mind. Pete wasn't scared of many people, and his ego certainly helped him in that quest, but if there was anyone that did freak him the fuck out, it was Jamia Nestor.

"You never shut up about Mikey Way, you know that, Pete." Patrick stated as nicely as he could, watching Pete's head jerk up from his phone instantly at the mention of Mikey's name, which of course only backed up Patrick in his suspicions.

"What do you mean by that?" Pete asked, blushing a little and pulling a horrible face of over exaggerated confusion, his eyes drifting everywhere but Patrick's, mainly focusing on his band posters on his bedroom walls, and his bass in the corner and just how he planned to impress Mikey Way with it.

"Nothing, necessarily." Patrick responded, his voice awfully calm, which only worked as a contrast against Pete's exaggerated tones.

"You saying that I like him or something?" Pete asked, letting out a fake laugh along with his words, which really only did nothing but to work against him here.

"No, Pete." Patrick let a smile pass over his lips at that. "That's exactly what you're saying."

"What-?"

"No, it's not just then, it's that you look up when I mention him, it's that you always go on about him, and you know that bass thing, impressing him? That's not pissing him off, that's flirting with him. And it's pretty obvious with the fact that you're not exactly the straightest of people." Patrick finished, smiling up rather innocently at Pete, and wondering just how hard his best friend would try to deny the rather obvious truth once more.

"What do you mean I'm not exactly the straightest of people?" Pete exclaimed, blushing horribly and praying that if Patrick noticed then nobody else had. "How do you even get that idea?"

"Don't worry, I'm the only one that actually listens to you, so you know, no one else hears you going on about guys from bands and blowjobs at like midnight." Patrick explained, watching in mild amusement as Pete's face flashed through just about a million facial expressions at once. "I've guessed this for several years now, just didn't want to embarrass you, but you're clearly head over heels for Mikey Way-"

"And Mikey Way has a strict Catholic family and is fucking homophobic asshole and I'm a fucking faggot, yeah this is going to fucking work, isn't it? Why the fuck do I even try? He's more than lovestruck over fucking Alicia Simmons, do I have to wear a fucking miniskirt and join the netball team just to get him to notice me or what?"

"And I'm guessing that's just about the closest you're going to get to admitting it, isn't it?" Patrick added with a small smile. "And let me tell you something - his brother's gay, isn't he? You told me that once; apparently you're just about the only person that pays any attention to Mikey Way's rants on his brother. I heard that means he has more chance of it himself, and all that homophobic stuff can be due to his parents suppressing his sexuality or something. Don't think it impossible, hey?" Patrick grinned at him, forcing Pete into a smile, because Patrick had some sort of magic habit like that.

"God, I don't know why I even listen to him rant about all that homophobic shit - it really pisses me off, you know, but I put up with it, I listen to him, because it's weird, I just, it's because you love them, you just love to hear them talk and you'll listen to them, no matter what absolute bullshit they're going on about." Pete let out a sigh, glancing across at his bass and perhaps giving it a second chance in his mind.

"Yeah I get what you mean. You might hate what they say, but just because it's from their mouth, it sounds like it's the words of angels." Patrick said as he listened to Pete Wentz talk about his crush on Mikey Way, listening despite the jealousy, listening because he cared about Pete more than he could ever imagine.

-

"So I assume you survived then, Frank?" Mikey asked the shorter boy as he walked down his road, stopping in front of the Way residence as the two of them awaited Ray's exit from his house next door.

"Yeah, I did, but my blazer did not." Frank sighed, gesturing down to his still blazer less form, "and I have to go get it back, so I can't walk with you two today, and please lie for me when I'm inevitably late." Frank pulled the puppy dog eyes on Mikey.

"Where the hell even is that thing?" Mikey asked, furrowing his brow as he wondered why Frank was even bothering and not just getting one from lost property before he actually went to his lessons - it was surprisingly easy to lie and get some free uniform, as Mikey had discovered when some kid stole his tie once last year.

"The park, somewhere, I guess, look, it's fine, I better get going." Frank rushed his words as he began in a fast paced walk past Ray's house and down the road, hoping that when he got to the bungalow at like seven in the morning someone would be awake at the very least.

Due to his fast pace, Frank arrived there in just over fifteen minutes, and let out a sigh, catching his breath as he pressed down against the doorbell, praying to any God he didn't believe in that someone would be awake.

"What the fuck do you want?" Frank was a little taken aback with the tone the door was answered with and he found himself rather uncomfortable as he found himself faced with a rather pissed off looking Bert McCracken, wearing nothing but heavily stained sweatpants, and his hair donning several weeks worth of grease. "Oh, it's you, you're his boyfriend, aren't you?"

"I... uhh... I left my blazer here yesterday, could I go, uh, get it?" Frank's word came out in an awfully muffled whisper.

"Yeah, whatever, kid. Just try and not leave your clothes here next time, cause if anyone finds out you're fucking a twenty five year old that's gonna be the evidence that gets him in jail." Frank had to shiver at Bert's harsh words and tried not to make eye contact with the guy as he walked through into the hallway, making his way towards Gee's bedroom only to be stopped in his tracks as Gee himself walked out from the bathroom.

The both of them were just about as shocked to see each other - Gee was mainly confused as to why Frank Iero was in his house at seven in the morning and Frank was really just in shock at how much of a mess Gee looked right now.

His hair was greasy and almost straw like, pulled back away from his face as if he'd just been puking, his eyes laden with bags and reddened at the edges, his skin shockingly pale (well, considerably paler than usual) and really seeing him in baggy sweatpants and an oversized shirt really made him look so much like Bert, and so little like himself. For Frank, it was just weird, to say the least.

"Yeah, he's well aware he looks like shit." Bert commented, obviously having noticed the silence that hung over the two of them. "Idiot took a shit ton of pills yesterday and he came back at four in the morning, puked on just about the whole living room and a bit more in the bathroom and let's just say nobody's getting pills off Bob anytime soon." And with that Bert disappeared, leaving Frank and Gee eye-to-eye and very much caught up in the reality of the situation.

"Why did you take so many pills, Gee?" Frank asked, stepping towards Gee and taking his hand, which the older guy was really in shock at, assuming Frank found him repulsive right now, which really was not the case, Frank just reckoned, he really needed a fucking hug. "Come on, I need my blazer - why I'm here, but we're going to sit down and talk about this, okay?" Frank explained as he led Gee into his bedroom.

"You'll be late for school." Gee pointed out the obvious, still rather taken aback by the fact that Frank hadn't freaked out on him at all.

"I don't care. Mikey said he'd cover for me, but even if he doesn't, they can give me another fucking detention, whatever, I don't care - you're more important." Frank picked up his blazer from Gee's bedroom floor, pulling it on and cringing at his reflection in the mirror. "I look like a fucking idiot, ugh."

"Have you seen the state I'm in?" Gee asked, almost laughing at the situation as he sat down on his bed, cross legged in the middle, grabbing a smoke from his bedside table. "Want one, Frankie?" He offered to the boy in a fucking Catholic school uniform.

"Yeah, thanks." Frank smiled sitting down, cross-legged, opposite Gee. He blushed as Gee put a cigarette between his lips and leaned in as he lit it for him.

"I would kiss you, but I'm pretty sure my mouth tastes of puke." Gee admitted, talking with his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and slurring his words just a little in the process, which Frank found oddly cute.

"Tell me what was with the pills, Gee." Frank let a few moments of silence pass before he got to the point, because he wanted to know what was going on here, despite how hard Gee may try to wriggle out of it.

"I... I... just... family." He let out a sigh, looking up at Frank with these big glassy eyes. "My mum, texted me, and basically she was going on about how much of a piece of shit I was and that I was never home, I just felt like shit, I needed not to feel like shit."

"And in the end you still end up feeling like shit, puking everywhere." Frank pointed out of the obvious, his eyebrows raised a little. "You're really not a piece of shit though, you're absolutely beautiful, Gee, okay?" Frank passed a smile in his boyfriend's direction.

"Look at me, Frankie." He let out a chuckle. "I look like a fucking hobo."

"You always look beautiful to me, okay." Frank whispered, laughing a little too.

"Fucking bullshit, honey." Gee snorted in response, taking a long drag of his cigarette. "Pills make me feel like shit now, yeah, but then, they made it better."

"Not a good idea in the long run though, Gee." Frank let out a sigh, grabbing his boyfriend with his free hand. "I care about you, okay?" He looked up into his eyes, trying to not admit to himself that this was really just a coward's way of saying 'I love you'.

"I care about you too, Frankie." Gee smiled in response and Frank hoped this was a coward's way of saying 'I love you too'. "I also care that you're really fucking late to school right now."

"I should probably finish this smoke first though." Frank added with a smirk, shuffling so he was sat between Gee's legs, his back pressed up against his chest,

"You probably should." Gee murmured against Frank's skin, grinning to himself wondering how the hell he'd ever gotten this lucky.

And one smoke seemed to last several hours, because Frank didn't actually turn up to school until lunchtime. What could he say? Gee was just a real fucking distraction, and it wasn't as if he could refuse the free cigarettes, could he?

That'd just be impolite, of course.

-


	6. Ray Toro's MS Paint Massacre

"Where the actual fuck have you been?" Jamia simply let her jaw drop as she watched Frank turn the corner of the art block, joining her in silence and pulling out his packet of smokes.

"I went to get my blazer back." Frank answered quickly, lighting his cigarette and turning back to Jamia, only to have his eyes widen as he noticed an awfully smug looking Pete Wentz stood beside her. "What the fuck are you doing talking to him?" Frank couldn't help but be just a little jealous, and seriously, Pete Wentz, of all fucking people?

"From his house." Jamia finished, letting out a sigh and raising her eyebrows - she really wasn't in the mood to put up a fucking lovesick puppy in the place of Frank Iero. "Mikey covered for you, surprisingly, so I assume he wants some sort of favour in return." Frank let out a sigh at this, because although he had avoided further punishment, this really could not be good - with Mikey Way it never was.

"So you skipped school to get laid, Iero." Pete stepped forward to face the blushing smoker, a smirk set proudly across his lips. And Frank couldn't help but admit that this was pretty much what it looked like, and perhaps that would have even happened if Gee hadn't been so fucking high, which of course, was his fault, but it wasn't something Frank could ever really blame him for - love does stupid things to stupid people.

"No, we didn't, we didn't fuck, we-" Frank stuttered out, his cheeks caught in the impassable snare of a blush.

"You read classic literature, of course!" Jamia finished with a smirk, rolling her eyes and utterly giving up hope in Frank - he was far too lovesick for his own good. She reckoned she ought to speak to Lindsey and get her t have a word with Gee because this was really driving her crazy.

"We were smoking and talking, and I, I didn't want to leave him because some of what we were discussing was y'know pretty important." Frank let out a sigh, his mind flickering back to Gee, then Mr and Mrs Way and finally resting on Mikey himself and just what he'd do if he ever found out that Frank was in love with his older brother.

"Like what colour scheme you were going to have for your wedding." Pete snorted, shaking his head, finding Frank's situation all too amusing - after all, it did great at distracting himself from his own; his own little situation with the asshole, Mikey Way.

"Fuck off, Pete." Frank snapped all of a sudden, the two of them unknowingly sharing thoughts of the younger Way brother, which really did not bode well for either's temper. It was almost as if Mikey Way was some sort of trigger for a mind hurricane, just in absolutely different ways for the two of them.

Frank could never understand how anyone could ever love Mikey Way and Pete could just never understand how anyone could really hate Mikey Way.

"Pete?" All three of them jumped at the sound of another voice, and thankfully for them it was only the timid voice of a slightly nervous Patrick Stump in search of his best friend.

Patrick wasn't going to tell on their smoking habits, of course, he was just a little startled to see actual people smoking, after all, with being a Catholic school student, it wasn't something he ever expected to see.

He'd expected it more from Jamia, who was well known for being a bit of a badass, and quite honestly Patrick was more than a little scared of her, but Frank, who was best friends with Mikey and Ray? Patrick had really not seen that coming.

"Patrick! I..." Pete began, his face consumed by a horrible blush as he stumbled to reach an explanation that he could just never quite get. He was safe in the knowledge that Patrick wouldn't say anything, because he wasn't the type, but Patrick was certainly going to have opinions on this.

"I was looking for you." Patrick finally let out, glancing across at Jamia and Frank as he spoke. Jamia had dropped her cigarette on sight of the short, ginger guy, but Frank was far too pissed off as it was and continued to smoke, staring right at Patrick, and intimidating him more than he had intended to in the process.

"You're not going to say anything, kid." Jamia stepped forward, directing her words at Patrick, before glancing back at Frank and shooting him a confused expression. "Why the fuck are you still smoking?"

"I'm sorry it's not as if I can just buy cigarettes is it?" He snapped in response, ignoring Patrick's rather taken aback response, who really hadn't seen this side of Frank at all, "I treasure them, Jamia."

"Yeah because your fucking boyfriend gave you them." She scoffed, rolling her eyes in response, and that was when Frank's gaze flew to Patrick, whose jaw dropped once more.

"Does the word closeted mean nothing to you?" Frank practically screamed at Jamia, gesturing wildly at Patrick, because he was so fucking screwed if this ever got out, and seriously beyond screwed, and oh my god if people found out who he was involved with... he'd be so fucking screwed he might as well just shoot himself, to save Mikey the trouble.

"It's okay." Patrick butted in, stepping forward, and locking his gaze with Frank's. "I won't tell anyone, and seriously it's fine, I mean with Pete already I'm used to this-" He began, letting slip what he thought they already knew, the reality, however lay otherwise.

"Pete?" Jamia exclaimed, her eyes widening as she addressed the blushing guy, who was really trying his best not to freak out at Patrick.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry - I thought they knew..." Patrick rushed the words out pulling a hand over his mouth in perhaps dramatized effect.

"Well, I think that's just about fair actually, a closet slip for a closet slip, but I will have you know if anyone finds out about Frank I will find a way to ruin your lives forever." Count on Jamia to always jump to the blackmail immediately.

"Wait... so, who does Pete like...?" Frank asked, his eyes widening as he looked up at Pete, his eyes straying in Patrick's direction momentarily, but catching nothing more than a blush. "You know who I like, and really that could ruin my life-"

"Nah, dude, mine's even more messed up." Pete shook his head, a blush still adamant on never leaving his cheeks. "Well, I gotta go, but... yeah, c'mon, Patrick."

"I have a horrible feeling I know who he likes," Jamia began as the two of them left, leaving Frank to stare at her with wide eyes. "And I have a horrible feeling it's you."

-

"What the hell happened to you, Frank? What the hell?" Mikey exclaimed as Frank joined him outside their maths classroom, a slightly concerned but considerably less angry looking Ray Toro stood beside him.

"We were worried, and Mikey lied for you. That's really bad, Frank." Ray was of course the first to jump to moral conclusions, which despite being the one who'd actually done the lying, Mikey wasn't all that fussed about at all.

"I, got caught up... distracted, I just, something important happened with someone important and that became more important than getting to school on time." Frank let out a sigh, hoping that he had at least befriended people stupid enough to be content even with the utter vague state at which his explanation was produced with.

"You've got a girlfriend haven't you?" Mikey snapped out, and really he was very nearly right, he'd just have to change the gender and the clarity of their relationship status. "And that's where your blazer was, her house." Frank couldn't help but blush at this, because the specifics of this was the fact that his blazer had been on Mikey's brother's bedroom floor.

"You had sex... with... you were late because... you were having sex..." Ray jumped to all the wrong conclusions, blushing a little at the fact that he even allowed this possibility to exist.

"There was no sex, we were just talking... something important happened and..." Frank let out a sigh, letting them think he had a girlfriend, after all, they weren't all that far off and that gave him a good enough excuse to go and see Gee whenever he wanted.

"What the fuck dude? You've got a girlfriend and I haven’t!" Mikey exclaimed, of course having to involve his own arrogance in the situation. "How? How? How? Who the hell is she?"

"We're not official, but there's something going on, yeah... I they don't go this school, you don't know them." Frank struggled to explain and prayed that Mikey didn't make a big enough scene out of this so that by the end of the lesson just about everyone would know. "And please keep this a secret, I don't want a big fuss."

Ray eyed Frank suspiciously for a few seconds before nodding, and Mikey quickly jumped to yet another stupid conclusion. "It's Jamia isn't it? Of course it's fucking Jamia-"

"It's not- you know what, Jamia is a lesbian. I met them through Jamia if you're all that fucking interested, but seriously this conversation ends here." Frank let out a sigh, hating the fact that he had to bring fucking Jamia into this. God, she would not be pleased. She'd probably punch Mikey though, so, you know, all clouds have their silver lining and all that bullshit.

-

"Mikey figures you've got a girlfriend." Pete came and sat down beside Frank, whose heart stopped at this, Jamia's words from earlier echoing in his mind - that couldn't be true, could it? Pete was just Pete, and I mean he knew about Gee, and he didn't act at all jealous, but seriously this was fucking with his head.

"Yeah, I let him think that. I mean he's pretty much right, isn't he?" Frank let out a small chuckle, watching as the teacher walked in and began writing something no one would care about across the whiteboard, and Frank could only guess that Pete would be 'gracing' him with his presence this lesson. Fuck.

"Wrong gender though." Pete added with a smirk, winking at Frank in a manner that didn't fail to render him terribly uncomfortable, especially with Jamia's words continuously echoing through his mind.

"Yeah, but let's not shout out about that." Frank left Pete with a stern glance, wishing Jamia could be here to simply reinforce her blackmail methods. Frank didn't know why, but people just seemed to be intimidated by her. Whatever, it seemed to be working in his favour these days anyway.

"You're fucking his brother and he doesn't even know - that's so fucking funny, though." Pete grinned across at Frank, who decided that perhaps even listening to the teacher would be better to listening to whatever shit Pete was coming out with right now.

"Yeah, what about this crush you have? Tell me about that, hey?" Frank smirked, suddenly turning the tables on him, and just praying that Pete would come out with anything to prove Jamia wrong, because it was kind of flattering to have someone crushing on you and all, but when it was someone like Pete Wentz, who was just about infamous for being an utter pain in the ass, yeah, a pain in the ass, who wanted you to give him pain in the ass. Frank was not down for that.

"Let's not talk about that." That fucking shut him up, just as Frank had expected.

But seriously even someone as stupid as Pete Wentz knew that discussing his crush on Frank's asshole of a best friend with Frank himself would not be a good idea at all, especially when Frank was crushing on his older brother, because that was really just a little bit awkward.

"Yeah, how about you think twice before interrogating me to death about my love life, huh?" Frank added, rolling his eyes and turning back to the whiteboard.

"I can't tell you who I like though." Pete admitted, and fuck everything Jamia was saying was lining up and it was going to end up killing him at this rate. "It's nothing personal, you'll just judge me, and things will be a bit awkward. And he'll find out and perhaps he'll hate me even more. It doesn't matter, he likes girls anyway."

Frank jumped back to Pete at that, "you're crushing on a straight guy?" Fuck, please say yes, because Frank could not deal with attraction from Pete Wentz.

"Unfortunately so." Pete let out a sigh, leaning his head on hand, elbow propped up on the desk.

"You just have to bend him then, don't you?" Now that the subject of attraction couldn't be him, Frank couldn't be more eager to help.

"That's going to be harder than you'd think." Pete let out a sigh, his eyes wandering across the room, stealing a glance at Mikey Way, the straight boy in question.

-

Frank really just considered turning his phone on silent when the painfully generic little beepy ringtone interrupted his music, but he gathered his friends had more than enough reasons to hate him by now and he really didn't want to have to hang around with Pete all day.

He picked the phone up without even glancing at the contact name, which probably wasn't the best of ideas but it was like eleven pm and Frank was more tired than he wouldn't have liked to admit.

"Frank? Hey!" Frank had to summon all of his strength not to let out a string of curse words and throw the phone down at the annoyingly cheery tune with which Ray answered his call. He hadn't even said anything more than a hello so this was either a casual chat, the kind let down to the end of their friendship, or Ray was asking for an excuse not to put up with Mikey tomorrow - either of three was horrible to even think about.

"Hi Ray." Frank answered, his voice coming out in a monotonous manner that he didn't even try to cover up - in his defence, he was tired. Not that Ray would ask, he was one of those people.

Frank grabbed his laptop from under his bed, knowing by now that this would be nothing short of a phone call that would leave him wanting to shoot himself, and really there was no better cure for that than not listening.

"How are you doing?" And here came the oh so suspected casual chatter. Fuck, Frank thought as he opened up MS Paint and drew something that vaguely resembled Ray bleeding out of all of his orifices. Frank was no Da Vinci though so it really more so took on the form of a weird clown man on his period.

"Frank?" Came Ray's voice, thinking perhaps his friend had fallen asleep or died or something, but not at all suspecting that Frank was drawing him amidst some sort of MS Paint massacre.

"Oh shit yeah, hi, I uhh sorry..." Frank closed the program, which was really all in favour of his sanity and started googling symptoms of psychopathy. He doubted that MS Paint massacres were listed, but that would of course give him some sort of self-diagnosed satisfaction.

"So Frank, I want to talk to you about this 'girlfriend' of yours." And oh fuck, perhaps he would have to concentrate on this one, if he wanted to keep his lies straight, that was. And really in the situation at hand, it wasn't just his lies that he was going to have to keep straight.

"Uh huh..." Frank answered as casually as possible, despite the fact he was freaking out in his head because oh god Ray hadn't bought this excuse had he? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"I don't mean to pry, but this is getting kind of obvious now. And I wanted us to talk about this privately as what I'm guessing's going on here is something that Mikey really wouldn't like. I don't want to go behind his back, but I don't want him to hate you for something that isn't your fault, but then again I could be wrong here so I'm not going to say anything directly, but I have a good idea as to what's the truth here, and you know Frank I'd appreciate it if you could just be honest with me."

Fuck. What the fuck was Frank supposed to think of this. Fuck. He couldn't just tell him the actual truth? Could he? Surely Ray hadn't considered that possibility; after all, he'd been brought up in utter ignorance of the existence of gay people, hadn't he? God, this was far too late for Frank to actually come up with a competent lie.

"What do you mean? What do you think's the 'truth'?" Frank didn't want to downright admit that what he'd told the two of them today wasn't the absolute downright truth, but then again it sounded like Ray had already guessed that, but what he thought was really going on now, that, Frank was clueless to.

"I don't want to make an absurd accusation here, but I have reasoning to believe what I believe, and today something you said it sort of linked it all together... I..." And there was Ray's overactive moral boundaries kicking in, and right now they were really pissing off Frank because despite the severity of their conversation he really just wanted to get this over with and go to sleep.

"Yeah dude, I won't get offended, just accuse me - I'll tell you if you're talking shit, dude." Frank let out a sigh, bracing himself for some bullshit, man, fuck, what if Ray had found out he smokes, fuck he'd probably have him signed up to some sort of health bullshit, man, Ray was kind of weird and maternal like that.

"The person you, you like, the girlfriend, I don't- I don't think they're a- I think... Frank, are you... Are you a homosexual?"

Well fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Frank was not expecting that and he was utterly left in some sort of stunned panicky silence as he realised there was pretty much no way out of this one. And Frank really should have remembered his 'I'll tell you if you're wrong' line, because he hadn't said anything, and Ray wasn't wrong.

"Frank? It's okay if you are, I mean the bible says some things and Mikey hates gay people, but I don't think that, I think that it's okay as long as you love God, and you're my best friend so this doesn't affect us. I won't tell Mikey, don't worry." Fuck, somehow Ray was okay with this; fuck the guy was too nice for his own good.

"Really don't tell Mikey, like seriously that's the biggest no go I can think of - his family kicked his brother out for being gay." Frank let out a sigh, hating to think of what Mikey would say if he ever found out about his sexuality, let alone the fact that the person he was crushing on was his older brother.

"So you are? Or are you bisexual?" Ray asked in a weirdly innocently dorky voice and Frank had to laugh at the fact that Ray was more interested in learning from this - god, the guy was kind of messed up, but at least it was Mikey who'd caught on, because Mikey really would have burned him at a stake by now or something.

"I'm a massive flaming gaylord, Ray. How did you find out though, seriously?" Frank let out a sigh, praying that his nerves would calm down because he really couldn't get to sleep if he was constantly on edge like this. He could trust Ray, though - he knew that, he just hoped that Ray's friendship side of his conscience would outweigh his god obeying, gay bashing side of his conscience.

"The girlfriend, you didn't ever say 'her', you said 'them'. And that was sort of the final confirmation, I mean you were always getting into fights over gay rights with Mikey, and then you're friends with the lesbian girl."

"Jamia." Frank corrected him almost instantly. "Her name's Jamia."

"Sorry. Can I ask a question though?" Ray's voice was awfully quiet and Frank was really quite pissed off by now, wanting to just hang up and try and get some sleep at all.

"Sure, knock yourself out." Frank let out a sigh, putting his laptop back under his bed and letting out a sigh as he pulled his covers over himself, laying back in bed and hoping he could hang up sooner rather than later.

"That whole girlfriend thing? Did you just agree to that to stop Mikey from asking you things or do you have a boyfriend?" Well fuck. Frank couldn't exactly go, yeah, yeah, I'm practically dating Mikey's brother, night Ray. 

"Sort of... It's not official, but we've uhh... expressed our feelings towards each other..." Fuck, Frank really shouldn't be hinting at the fact that he's had his dick sucked by a guy to his highly Catholic best friend, who surprisingly wasn't freaking out. Seriously, people didn't give Ray Toro enough credit for all the bullshit he puts up with.

"Oh... oh... okay...." Frank could feel Ray's blush through the phone line and oh god he was thinking that Frank's had gay sex, which really wasn't all that far from the truth, but it wasn't something Frank wanted in Ray's head by any means. He was just glad he hadn't a clue as to who the guy in question was.

"Night, Ray."

"Yeah, uh, night Frank."

Fuck, Frank was screwed, beyond fucking screwed.

-

He didn't know if it was the millions of thoughts racing through his head or just his lack of damn luck that was preventing him from sleeping, but right now Frank didn't care. It was half past midnight, and Frank was beyond fed up with trying to get to sleep.

He'd tried texting Jamia but of course she was asleep, or otherwise occupied, perhaps the latter knowing her, and there really was no hope in the fact that either Mikey or Ray would be awake at this hour, and that was how Frank found himself texting Gee at half past midnight. Fuck his life.

Hey I can't sleep:( x

He spent far too long arguing with himself over the kiss at the end but he was tired and if it came down to it he could always say his finger slipped, but fuck, this guy had sucked him off, there was no way in hell he had the right to go all no homo on him now. 

Frank even doubted he'd receive a reply but soon enough his phone screen lit up and a message popped up below his own.

Aw Frankie you can always come in sleep in my bed if that'll help;) x

Fuck Gee, fuck him, was what Frank really did want to do because that fucking winky face didn't mean sleeping that was the Gee was a little pissed and it was a stupid fucking time so he was more than prepared to have sex with a seventeen year old face.

Shut up x

Frank rolled his eyes, sitting up in his bed and just about accepting that tonight would be a sleepless night. He almost jumped at his phone vibrating in his hand, signifying a call, and fuck, Gee. Of course.

He picked up though, of course.

"What do you want, assface?" Frank sighed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he tried not to wake his mum up with the late night phone call.

"Assface? Does that mean you want to put your ass in my face because I'm up for that, Frankie, my bed's got plenty of room. I'll help you sleep just fine." Frank fucking sighed at Gee's giggles across the phone line - he was a little stoned, that was noticeable.

"Stop flirting with me, you twat." Frank let out a sigh, pulling a hoodie on, because it was fucking cold and he needed to open his window and have a smoke, preying that his mum wouldn't wake up and notice.

"I'm deadly serious, come over, we can cuddle up and have sex whatever, or you can just get to sleep, I don't mind, honey." Fuck, he'd ran out of smokes and suddenly Gee's offer sounded all the more inviting.

"I've ran out of cigarettes." Frank proclaimed over the phone line.

"I've got a packet here, we can smoke and fuck at the same time if you want. I don't know how good I am at holding a cock and a cigarette in my mouth at the same time, though. Just a warning." Fucking hell. Frank snorted as the thought of Mikey hearing their conversation crossed his mind. Fuck, Ray better not have told Mikey.

"I can't, I've got school tomorrow, and like I really have to go today, and my mum'll be pissed if she finds out I'm not there when she wakes up." His mum would probably notice that her son wasn't here when she woke up as well, which wouldn't go down all that well.

"I'll drive you back before she wakes up and you can go back to bed like nothing ever happened, don't worry. I can set an alarm; we'll be fine. Bert's out with Bob so we have a free house as well, so if you have any weird fetishes we're good to go-"

"Gee... I'm just tired..." Frank let out a sigh, pulling on his skinny jeans almost without thinking and fuck; he wasn't seriously going to do this, was he?

"My bed's real comfy, you know." He added in a weirdly seductive whisper.

This was a fucking stupid idea and Frank knew that there was no way in hell he was ever going to get away with this, but Gee was some piece of shit, because fuck, Frank was agreeing like he just won the lottery.

-

Frank never imagined he'd find himself frantically ringing a bungalow's doorbell at one in the morning, but you know, there's a first time for everything. He just really hoped Gee hadn't fallen back to sleep or something because the walk here had been bad enough. Apparently it was fucking cold at one in the morning - who knew? 

"You actually came?" Gee pulled open the door, wearing a long black t-shirt that stopped mid thigh and as Frank suspected, nothing else.

"You shouldn't take advantage of the fact that I'm tired enough to make stupid decisions, y'know." Frank let out a sigh, pushing past the twenty five year old and pulling down the sleeves of his hoodie as he shivered a little - did they not have central heating or something?

"You're shivering, Frankie." Gee pointed out the obvious, pulling the seventeen year old against his chest and Frank couldn't help but let out a prolonged sigh as he inhaled his scent; coffee, cigarettes, and pot. Also somehow, Gee was really fucking warm as Frank was not keen on letting go any time soon.

"No shit Sherlock." He mumbled his words against Gee's shirt, not even glancing up to gauge the guy's reaction to being sloth hugged: Frank was cold - he could shove his opinion up his asshole.

Gee giggled a little, pulling away slightly and making eye contact with Frank. "C'mon, honey, let's go to my room. It's warmer, and I have a packet of smokes." He grabbed onto Frank's hand, almost pulling the sleep deprived teenager like he was a toddler, needing to be constantly attended to, to his bedroom. Considering their destination, it was pretty good that Frank wasn't a toddler, because that would be even shadier than their situation already was.

Frank sat in Gee's bed with the duvet pulled up around him, still wearing his hoodie but having slipped his jeans off pretty much at the door - he better remember them, well, thinking about it, he really couldn't, unless he wanted to walk home in his boxer shorts, and although sleep deprived, he wasn't quite stupid enough to do that.

The twenty five year old grabbed a packet of cigarettes and a lighter off his shelf, throwing both the items in Frank's direction, who picked them up from where they landed on the mattress and proceeded to light his own cigarette in just about ten seconds flat, which really wasn't something he should be proud of.

"You know I just put this shirt on to answer the door." Gee let a smirk lap over his lips as he addressed Frank, leaning back against his wardrobe and tugging at his shirt a little. Frank responded only with widened eyes and a slight blush. "I usually sleep naked... Is that okay with you?"

Oh fuck, Frank was really fucking screwed, man, fuck.

"If you're not wearing any clothes then I can promise you that I won't be getting much sleep and really that would have made me sneaking out into the cold at one in the morning utterly pointless." Frank responded, pulling his cigarette to his lips and taking a long drag as he watched Gee tug at his shirt like he was being paid to undress.

"Oh, I can ensure that it's worthwhile, sugar." He stepped forward, pulling his shirt off completely and discarding it on the floor, leaving Frank to gawp at his exposed body.

"How are you that fucking pale?" Frank exclaimed, because Gee did quite literally look like a fucking vampire. "You look like a vampire, fuck." Frank exclaimed, discarding his cigarette in the trashcan, because Gee was far more important right now. He stood up on the bed, walking over to the end to meet Gee, smirking at the fact that he was finally taller than him.

Gee reached out running one finger down Frank's jaw, tracing the way his bone slightly protruded. "And guess what, sugar? I bite."

Oh fuck, Frank was really screwed now, shivering against Gee's fucking touch. Fuck, everything in his head told him that this was a bad idea, but his dick had really never heard a better one.

"Fuuckk..." Frank moaned out Gee's hands ran up his thighs, caressing every part of him, and touching him just how he fucking needed to be.

"Frankie, baby, you're wearing far too many clothes, don't you think?" He whispered, almost as if this was something incredibly private and secretive, even though they had the whole house to themselves and even if Bert were here, he'd be well aware of the nature of their actions.

"Fix that problem for me, Gee." Frank let out a sigh as Gee's hands ran up inside his hoodie, pulling it off and exposing his bare chest, a finger running up and circling his nipples in a horribly teasing manner, because fuck, Frank was already getting hard.

Frank could barely even comprehend what was happening as Gee kneeled down, placing his hands of Frank's hips and pulling his boxers down to his ankles, grabbing Frank's hardening cock in one hand and smirking to himself.

"Like I said, Frankie, I bite."

And Frank could barely even respond until Gee had taken him fully into his mouth, sucking at his length like he was being paid good money to do so, and of course all Frank could let out in response were these breathy little gasps that just hit Gee straight where it mattered.

Of course that was when Frank found that Gee was not kidding, as he ran his teeth down Frank who jumped at the sensation, letting out an enormous fucking gasp and pulling away, leaving Gee with a startled and mildly embarrassed look in his eyes.

"Fuck, I'm sorry, I-" Gee began, pulling his gaze down and blushing to himself, because fuck, he'd pretty much just messed things up for good now hadn't he?

"No, Gee, I..." Frank let out a sigh, running one hand through the black hair of the twenty five year old, who looked up at Frank immediately - big hazel eyes stretched open wide and oh seriously fuck. "I'm going to come like this if you carry on, I... I don't want to come like that... I... want... to..."

"Fuck?" Gee suggested, a coy smirk shrugging its way onto his lips as he filled in Frank's silence. The younger boy blushed in response before he regained his composure.

"Yeah. I want to." Frank confirmed, simply smiling to himself, because he was going to get laid. He was going to lose his virginity to a fucking cross dresser who loved the Smiths and was pale enough to look like a vampire, and really this was the best fucking idea Frank had ever had.

"You know how this works I assume?" Gee asked, walking over to his dresser and opening one of the draws. Frank let out an 'mm-hmm' noise in response and Gee continued, rummaging around frantically because fuck Bert better not have stolen his condoms. Fucking Bert McCracken the condom thief. "And you're okay with topping?" Gee turned around at Frank's silence.

"Jesus, look at me, I'm the biggest fucking bottom the world's ever seen." Gee exclaimed and Frank had to giggle at that, the reality of what they were about to do still having not quite sunken in yet.

"I've never done this before, but I... I want to do this with you I..." Frank stumbled out, blushing like hell and hating the fact he was such a fucking virgin.

"It's okay, Frankie." Gee finally found the two items he'd been searching for and walked over to Frank, putting them down on the bed beside them and sitting beside Frank. "You'll be great, baby. I'll guide you, mmhmm?"

"Yeah, I... guess." Frank pulled on a smile and before he could even think about what was happening, Gee was kissing him like fuck and he was back and hard again, like fuck.

Frank pushed the guy down against his bed, planting kisses down his neck and smirking as he groaned against them.

"Little fucking dominant virgin, are we?" Gee taunted, reaching up and pulling at Frank's hair, knotting his fingers in the dark locks. "What would God think- ah... of you now? You little- ah.. Catholic slut." Frank responded with only a smirk as he pulled his lips away from Gee's neck, satisfied with the mark he'd created.

"Shut up." Frank chided in an oddly affectionate manner, smirking down at Gee as he pushed his hair back from his face. "So fucking beautiful." He let out a sigh, closing his eyes for a moment and knowing that he could have everything here - this was going to be so fucking good.

"Well? Come on then?" Gee continued in his taunts, pulling Frank down to face him by his hair. "Fuck me, sweetie. Fuck me."

"If you insist." Frank added with a grin, pulling away from Gee and pulling his legs apart so he was kneeling between them and Gee wrapped his legs around Frank, pulling him closer.

"Come on, I'm so fucking hard." Gee let out a moan, reaching out and pulling at Frank's nipple, causing him to release nothing other than a fucking perfect little gasp in response.

"And you have the nerve to call me the slut?" Frank laughed, shaking his head as he pulled the condom onto his length, blushing a little at what he was about to do and thinking of the guy beneath him a something other than Mikey's brother.

"You're gonna want to stretch me first, Frankie." Gee butted in watching as the seventeen year old fumbled with the condom. "I'd do it myself, but I'm such a whore for you, need you, Frankie."

"Fuck. Shut up, oh my god." Frank let out a sigh, pushing a finger into Gee who squirmed at the sensation before letting out the best fucking moan Frank had ever heard. "You are literally the biggest slut I've ever seen." Frank pushed a second finger in, every little fucking sound coming from Gee's lips going straight to his fucking dick.

"You go to a Catholic school, Frankie. I'm sure there's not that much competition." Gee let out a giggle, only for it to be cut off by a gasp. "Fuck, Frankie, there, there, there, there. Fuck me, there, right now, just fuck, Frankie, fuck..."

Frank just moaned in response, applying lube down his length and pressing his tip at his entrance. "You... oka-"

"Just fucking fuck me!" Gee screamed out, pushing himself onto Frank's dick, and oh fuck, Frank was not expecting it to feel quite this good, but oh god, it did, it really fucking did. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is just- ah, fuck..." Frank dragged out a trail of profanities as Gee practically guided him to the right spot, the both of them feeling it instantly as they found it.

"There, I- just, Frankie, fuck me, you fucking whore!" He screamed out once more, reaching out and latching his hands onto Frank's hips, pulling the boy down against him.

Frank pulled himself out a little, only to be practically pulled back in by Gee himself, tugging at his hips in a way that was most definitely going to bruise and fuck Frank did not care at all, he was just thinking about how fucking close he was.

He repeated his actions, Gee's moans only increasing both in volume and profanity as they continued and Frank just couldn't stop fucking moaning, because fuck, nothing was better than this, absolutely nothing at all.

"Touch me, Frankie, please, Frankie, I need, I need, to fucking..." Gee grabbed Frank's hands placing them around his own length and pulling them up and down, only for Frank to pull Gee's hands away, continuing for himself and timing his thrusts with the movements his hands made.

"How fucking close are you, because- ah, fuck ahhh, fuck, I-.. I'm fucking close, I..." Frank pulled the words out, struggling against the sensations in his body; how everything single nerve and every single cell was completely focused with just how fucking good this felt.

"Just fucking... one more.. I..." Frank, of course, complied, gathering all his energy as he thrusted deep in to Gee, who screamed his name out in response as he came all over Frank's hands and his own chest, which Frank could really not handle, coming moments later.

"Fuck, that was so fucking good I..." Frank panted out, Gee let out a small gasp as Frank pulled himself out, tying up the condom and chucking it in the trash can his discarded cigarette lay in.

"I know, Frankie, baby, I know..." Gee sighed out, sitting up and kissing Frank, despite the come on his chest and on Frank's hands. "Just wipe it on the sheets somewhere - I don't care, 's my come anyway."

Frank giggled a little at this, but obliged before grabbing the packet of Marlboro from where it had fallen on the floor, lighting himself a cigarette and vowing that he'd finish this one.

"Light me one, baby." Gee asked, holding an unlit cigarette between his lips and sitting on his pillow, the duvet wrapped around him.

Frank shook his head with a sigh, but complied, bringing the lighter up to Gee's lips and lighting the cigarette, as he held his own in his mouth.

-

"Fuck, I'm tired now." Frank let out a sigh, binning the stump of his cigarette and nuzzling his face into Gee's chest.

"Told you I'd get you sleeping fine." He responded with a smirk, grabbing his phone and setting an alarm. "What time should we be back before your mum wakes up?"

"Like six..." Frank let out a sleepy sigh, not caring at all about his mother and more of just how warm Gee was and just how much easier it was to fall asleep pressed up against him.

"Five thirty I've set an alarm for then. It's two now, so get the most out of your three hours, honey." Gee let out a sigh, putting his phone back on the nightstand and brushing Frank's hair behind his ear, whispering something to the pretty much asleep teenager curled up against his chest.

"Sleep well, Frankie. Love you."

And of course, Frank heard.

He could only smile though, cuddling closer to Gee and falling to sleep before he could mumble out a response. Not that one was necessary - the proof of that was in his actions, and after they did speak louder than words.

And seriously, Gee's sex moans were the loudest thing Frank's ever heard.

-


	7. Say Sorry To Your Virginity, Frank

"You gotta wake up, Frankie." Gee brushed the dark hair from the sleepy eyes of the seventeen year old who lay in his bed beside him. He hated being awake this early, but it was more than important to ensure that Frank was home before his mother could even know that he snuck out to fuck a twenty five year old.

"Mmm... fuck... off.. 'm... tired.." Gee couldn't help but let out a giggle at the mildly pissed off and very tired tone Frank answered him in, resorting to burying his face against Gee's chest, not that was something either of them were quick to protest to.

"We need to get you home before your mum wakes up, baby." Gee let out a sigh, pulling himself away from the seventeen year old, standing up and looking down at his exposed body and then at the wardrobe, pulling on yesterday's jeans and the first shirt he found.

"I am home... 's... my bed..." Frank mumbled into the pillow in the absence of Gee, who could only shake his head, praying that the seventeen year old would remember what happened last night eventually, because fuck, he'd given Gee his virginity last night - that was pretty important, Gee reckoned.

"No, you're not." Gee reminded him, pulling his cover off the sleeping boy who shivered in response, tugging his knees up to his chest in order to conserve heat. "You're in my bed, Frankie. My house, and you need to get back to yours before your mum wakes up."

Frank finally pulled his eyes open, glancing around the room and confirming what Gee told him, and slowly everything fell back into place - Ray's phone call, the bout of insomnia, texting Gee, calling Gee, going over to Gee's... and fucking Gee.

"Oh my god we had sex last night, didn't we?" Frank sat up with a start, his eyes pulled wide in disbelief and his gaze aimed in the direction of the boy currently pulling on a black cardigan.

"Look at yourself, Frankie." Gee turned around with a smirk, "you're naked in my bed - the truth is pretty obvious."

"I am no longer a virgin - Mikey's going to be so fucking jealous!" Frank exclaimed, practically leaping out of bed and Gee couldn't help but blush as he mentioned his brother just so casually. Gee reckoned that the subject of his brother should be casual, but he also reckoned that parents shouldn't kick their son out of their own home just for being gay.

"It's probably best that you don't tell him that you had sex with his brother, just saying." Gee reminded the younger boy. "Your clothes are here," he gestured to the pile at the foot of the bed. "It's probably best you put them on."

"Oh shut up," Frank smirked, walking over to Gee, "you love seeing me naked, don't you?" He stood up on his tiptoes, pressing a kiss to his lips, before turning to his clothes without a word.

-

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Frank let out a string of profanities as they walked down his road - they were late and the sun was fucking rising, fuck, he was going to be grounded for this, for sure.

Gee, as much as he cared about Frank and his problems, was more occupied with the all too familiar house they were about to pass - the house that had been his house, and if the world wasn't so messed up, would still be his house. Mikey was inside that house - asleep, and so were his parents. Part of him, reckoned that he should have been too, but there was a great deal of him that much preferred walking home the cutest boy he'd ever seen, who he'd just had great sex with.

Frank soon noticed Gee's fixation upon the semi detached house, which Frank only knew as 'Mikey's house', but it was very much Gee's too. Frank didn't feel like Gee would ever belong in such a typically suburban middle class family house like that, and that the boy fit much better in Bert's bungalow that always seemed to smell of weed and had a fridge that mainly consisted of alcohol and left over pizza.

"You haven't been here since you left, have you?" Frank asked as they continued to walk at a slowed pace; the seventeen year old now more concerned with the wellbeing of the boy beside him as opposed to just how pissed off his mum would be if she found out that he snuck out, basically, to have sex.

"No," Gee shook his head. "I haven't. It's weird, and horribly nostalgic, but nostalgic in a bad way. I want to think of this as your road and not have all the memories I've spent far too long trying to forget throw themselves back in my face."

"Then don't look." Frank began, almost as if this was simple, which he understood that it really wasn't, but he did of course really wish it were. "Don't look at your old house, look at me, and look at mine."

Gee pulled his gaze back to meet Frank's, throwing him a smile. "Okay."

And that was all that was said as the two of them linked hands and walked the two minutes that remained until they reached Frank's house.

"That's my house." Frank pulled his hand away and pointed at the house with his mum's car parked in the driveway, which was a good sign, meaning she hadn't driven down to the police station and reported him missing or something - not that she was ever the kind of mum to do anything like that.

"C'mon, then - I'm walking you to the door, Frankie." Gee added with a smile, "it's only polite." He winked at Frank before relinking their hands.

"You're acting like this is a date." Frank stated, watching the twenty five year old's face as he reacted to Frank's statement.

"You're acting like it's not." Gee responded, smirking like hell.

"You can go now - this is my door." Frank reached out, placing his hand on the door handle as he spoke, gesturing to the street with his other hand.

"Aren't you going to say good bye to me properly?" Gee asked, pulling Frank closer to him, knowing he was acting like a teenager right now, but enjoying it nonetheless, because Frank gave him that opportunity - this was sneaking around and fucking and it was just about the right kind of awkward to make them blush and smile at the same time. This was the teenage life that the twenty five year old never really got.

So he kissed Frank with all too much tongue and visible desperate tendencies - he kissed him like Frank getting grounded was a terrible threat, and he kissed him like he hadn't been kicked out and now lived with stoners. He kissed him like he'd be sneaking back through his window and jacking off at the memories before his alarm went for school.

And Frank kissed him back like they could be free in what they were doing, he kissed him back like nothing and yet everything mattered, he kissed him back like the whole world was watching, but nobody cared, he kissed him back like he could do what he wanted with his life, he kissed him back like he wasn't scared that his mother would wake up any minute, and he kissed him back like he wasn't closeted, he kissed him back like he wasn't Mikey's brother, and he kissed him back like this was a thing they didn't have to be secretive about.

They kissed each other like Mrs Iero wasn't standing behind a now opened door, having only just woken up and found her son's bed empty and the door unlocked.

"Frank?" She let out a little cough, causing the two boys to jump apart with widened eyes as they focused upon her not quite so shocked figure.

"Mum- I... I.." Frank let out a gasp in shock, glancing between his brother and Gee - the boy she'd just seen him making out with, the boy she knew he'd snuck out with.

"Hello, I'm Frank's mother, but please call me Linda." She ignored her son completely, directing her words to Gee, who really was just as shocked by the gesture as Frank.

"Uhh... I'm Gee..." He finally thought to respond, blushing as he forced himself to smile at Linda, realising that fuck, this was Frank's mum, and the first impression she had of him was the guy who practically kidnapped her son and who she caught making out with him.

"Oh..." Mrs Iero let a smug look settle over her face as she winked at Frank, who really prayed to just about anyone and anything that his mum wasn't going to bring up anything stupid right now. "Frank's said a lot about you."

"Oh.. er... he has?" Gee glanced across at Frank, the two boys sharing an awkward blush.

"Do you want to come in and have breakfast with us? Or can you not stay?" She asked, welcoming him in like it was fucking nothing, which to Gee was practically unbelievable, because he knew that if their positions were reversed and this was Frank meeting his mother, then she probably would have shot him by now.

"Yeah, I guess I can, if that's... alright?" He asked, directing the last part more so in Frank's direction than Linda's.

"Don't ask him - it's my house and despite the fact that I'm very keen to meet his boyfriend," she directed her words to her own son at this point, "I'm still rather annoyed with her, considering the fact that it's very obvious what's happened here."

Fuck, Gee thought, however he still couldn't get his head around the fact that he was inviting him in even with the knowledge that he'd had sex with her son. Then again, he already knew that Linda wasn't a very conventional woman, but fuck, this was just so weird to him.

"Sorry, mum." Frank let out a sigh as she lead the two of them in - he was pretty keen on the idea of shooting himself right now, because his mum was pretty much in the ideal situation to bring out the collection of just about every embarrassing thing Frank has ever done in his life.

"Don't say sorry to me, Frank, say sorry to your virginity. So rude of you to abandon it like that." And Gee couldn't help but fucking choke, because he really wasn't sure if Mrs Iero was the best or the worst mother he'd ever met.

Frank glared at him like hell, making it obvious that he didn't see the humour in his mother's words that Gee did.

"Just take your shoes off and I'll put some toast on or whatever, I'm sorry, Gee, but breakfast here gets just about as exotic as Rise Krispies or slightly burnt toast." Gee kept quiet about the fact that his breakfast usually happened at about noon and consisted of black coffee and a cigarette, sometimes a blunt if he woke up and was particularly hung-over, but that really wasn't the best thing to tell the mother of someone he wanted to be his boyfriend.

He could help but smile at the fact that Frank hadn't bothered to correct her when she referred to him as Frank's boyfriend, though. That give him hope - stupid teenage girl esque hope, but hope nonetheless.

Gee sipped slowly on his coffee as he watched Frank's mother fiddle with the toaster, insisting that the both of them ate something, despite the fact that neither of them felt anything but butterflies in their stomach right now.

"So then, how did the two of you meet?" She asked, directing her question rather obviously at the two of them, despite ever turning her back, but they very much doubted that she'd gone quite mad enough to engage in a conversation with the toaster or something.

"I... uhh... Jamia took me to this party with her..." Frank began to explain, blushing a little and turning to Gee, who tossed him a reassuring smile - Frank could only provide an awkward one in return. Gee didn't mind though.

"This party that I didn't know about?" Linda asked, turning around with two slices of toast on two plates and handing them to the two boys, with a packet of butter and a jar of nutella.

"Yeah, that one." Frank added with a blush, and Gee let out another giggle.

"I like him - he laughs at my jokes." She added, sending a grin in Gee's direction. "For a boy that took my son's virginity, I'd say you're pretty nice."

"I wouldn't call that nice, I'd call that treachery - these are jokes at my expense." Frank added with a scowl and a mouthful of toast.

"Shut up and eat your toast, Frank, you'll need to go to school soon."

Frank couldn't help but feel almost flung back into reality at that point, falling down from eating toast with Gee and his mum being generally embarrassing, and into a reality where he had to meet his best friend and walk to school with him, trying not to bring up the fact that he had sex with his older brother last night, and the fact that his mum knows about it.

Fuck, he couldn't even say that he had sex last night, because Ray was catching onto the gender of Gee rather quickly, and it wouldn't be all that long until he caught onto his full identity. Frank wondered how good Ray would be at keeping secrets then.

Or perhaps he'd just have to ensure Jamia had sufficient blackmail before that could happen.

-

"You know what is really pissing me off?" Frank let out a deep sigh, trying not to look up at Mikey with an 'oh fuck no please not again' look, which evidently he was failing at.

"What?" Frank snapped out, rolling his eyes and hating that he had to be even at all involved in this conversation, and really despite their conversation last night, Frank found himself praying that Ray got out of English as quick as possible, because even an awkward conversation with him would be better than this shit with Mikey.

"Alicia." Oh Jesus fucking Christ, kill me now, Frank thought, glancing around in search of the nearest weapon or basically anything he could use to kill either him or Mikey. "It's like she doesn't even notice me, you know? That's ridiculous, like, you know how much effort I put into talking to her and getting her to like me but it's like she doesn't even notice sometimes, you know? And that's stupid because I'm really interesting and attractive, you know, like, the two of us would be a perfect couple. My parents would love her I can tell you that and I'll always cheer on her netball games and she can come watch me play croquet. I really wanna marry her as well; I bet we'd have cute kids, huh? What do you think, Frank?"

Frank could only stare with a disgusted expression, more concerned with the mental health of his best friend as opposed to the names of his future non-existent children. "She doesn't even like croquet, Mikey. Seriously you're trying too hard and honestly you sound kind of creepy."

"Well, how am I supposed to sound? What am I supposed to do to get a girlfriend, huh? Frank just fucking tell me what do I do?" His tone changed into one of demand, leaving Frank to just stare at him with a confused expression.

"I don't know dude, I'm not good with that shit."

"Yet you have a girlfriend, and I don't." Mikey reminded Frank, the latter of the two blushing to himself as he tried not to laugh aloud at the fact that said girlfriend was actually a boyfriend, or somewhere close to there, and said not quite boyfriend was actually Mikey's brother, and that Frank had lost his virginity to said not quite boyfriend very much Mikey's brother last night.

"We had sex last night-" Frank suddenly found himself announcing before he could put a hand to his lips, his eyes practically bulging out their sockets, and oh man, damn that brain to mouth filter that evidently hadn't woken up with Frank this morning.

"What?" Mikey exclaimed, practically pinning Frank back against the wall in a mixture of disbelief, excitement and jealousy. "You did not, oh my god. You're not a virgin and I am, this is unacceptable, oh my god... Tell me absolutely everything, you little shit."

"I... uhh..." Frank's cheeks fell under the spell of a blush as the memories of last night / very early this morning came flooding back and really he needed to stop thinking about Gee Way sucking him off if he didn't want to get a boner in the middle of Catholic school. "We did it and it was good...?"

"Where? When? How? Who initiated? Tell me everything? Tell me about your fucking girlfriend? Does she have nice tits-" Frank really wanted to tell Mikey that his brother did in fact not have nice tits, but thank the holy fucking lord because it was at that moment that Ray finally decided to arrive.

"Hey, sorry I'm late, I got held up-" Ray tried to explain, only to have Mikey press a finger to his lips and point in my direction.

"Guess who got laid last night?" Mikey exclaimed, announcing the news like an oddly proud parent and as I awkwardly pulled my gaze up to meet Ray's, I remembered our little talk last night and Ray was really looking at me like I'd had took it in the ass, which in fact, was wrong - I had been in Mikey's brother's ass, but I doubted the truth would improve anything at all here.

"Oh.. God... Frank..." Ray trailed his words out and we shared this awkward knowing look that thankfully Mikey was ignorant enough to not even notice.

"We need to meet her now!" Mikey exclaimed, unaware to the fact that really did not want to meet Frank's 'girlfriend', because Frank's 'girlfriend' was his brother.

"Slow down, Mikey. They aren't even officially together, are you?" Ray asked, fucking saving Frank's ass, which oh my god praise the fucking lord was Frank beyond grateful for.

"No, we haven't made anything official, but it wasn't just a casual fuck... I... mean... it was special, I just know... there's something, but that something hasn't got a name." Frank struggled to explain, even praying by now that Mikey would carry on talking about Alicia and that meant that Frank really was desperate.

"So what's her name?" Mikey continued, despite everyone's utter discomfort, and oh fuck, Frank was going to have think of a girl's name in like less than a second flat and remember it too.

"Gee...orgia... uhh... she's called Georgia..." Frank blushed and fuck was that close enough to Mikey's brother's name for him to notice anything- Frank let out a deep breath: Gee was seriously going to laugh like fuck when Frank told him this. Frank wondered quite how he'd respond to being called 'Georgia'.

"When Alicia and I get together you, me, Alicia and Georgia need to double date sometime, you know at that pizza place - that'd be cool." Mikey came up with yet another ridiculous idea, and really Frank was so fucking glad that Mikey would never go on a date with Alicia because then he'd never have any real excuse to meet 'Georgia'.

"When?" Ray raised his eyebrows, continuously stepping in for Frank, which he really owed him for and Frank reckoned he'd have some seriously payback coming his way. "I'd say it's an 'if, a small chance - Mikey, I don't mean to upset you, but Alicia Simmons, isn't interested in you."

"Yeah sure, Ray, I bet you fifty dollars that I can get a date with Alicia by the end of next week."

Ray simply laughed, "I look forward to spending my fifty dollars on tickets to Metallica."

"But you'll take me." Mikey pouted, his eyes widening at the mention of Metallica. "You won't go alone, of course."

"I'll take Frank."

"Get in!" Frank exclaimed, knowing far too well that he'd be seeing Metallica.

"You won't be going - I'll be taking Alicia." Mikey smirked.

"As if she likes Metallica." Ray shook his head, his afro moving like a living organism as he did so.

"I don't know a single girl with a decent taste in music though, do you?"

"I do." Frank added with a smirk, leaving Mikey to assume he meant Georgia, which he kind of did, besides the girl part, but Frank did know a girl with a decent taste in music - Jamia.

"How have you not managed to get with someone but also with the most perfect person on the planet?" Mikey let out a sigh, slouching against the wall in disappointment.

"Honestly I do not know."

And really, Frank didn't.

He suspected it was something to do with The Smiths though, and he reminded himself that if he ever met Morrissey to personally thank him.

-

Frank wasn't paying all that much attention in Art, and despite it being a subject he even found himself vaguely enjoying at times, he just couldn't focus on his work at all - perhaps it was the ear-splitting sound of Mikey and Pete having an argument that amusingly resembled a domestic from the other side of the room, or perhaps it was just the way he felt Ray looking at him when he thought Frank didn't notice.

Frank couldn't help be nervous around his best friend now, especially now he'd heard Mikey babble unknowingly on about the fact that Frank had gay sex last night, which in a way was rather hilarious, but then again, Mikey could never find out, and Ray had this odd set of morals that Frank had to question at times.

"Faggot!" Frank's eyes dart up at that, despite the fact he knows the insult isn't aimed in his direction, it's still almost like a reflex, and Ray notices too, turning to look in the same direction as Frank.

Pete had been the target of the insult and Mikey had been the one to fire it in his direction, which Frank hadn't doubted all that much - faggot almost seemed to be Mikey's favourite word these days, especially when describing his brother.

"You're calling me a faggot just because I made a fucking joke? Can you not see the point over the massive boner you have for me right now?" Frank's eyes practically fell from his sockets at that point, because, fuck, Pete had balls. And to say the least, Mikey was not pleased.

"What the fuck you fucking gaylord? Get your gay ass boner for me out of my fucking face you fucking fag. Don't ever talk to me again!" Mikey practically screamed out, the room going silent as all twenty students turned their heads to look at the scene the two were causing, and of course, it was at this moment that the teacher was absent, having decided to take a tea break in the supply cupboard down the hall.

"Why not?" Pete asked, turning around to gauge the reaction from the audience the two of them had acquired, "c'mon guys, I was just being polite - asked him if he wanted to share the red colour I'd mixed because he was having difficulty mixing his own. I'm the fucking nice guy here." Pete explained, directing his words to the 'audience' of slightly pissed off but generally intrigued students.

"Sharing fucking paint is gay. Art is fucking gay. You're fucking gay-" Mikey began with his natural tactic of generally just throwing insults left, right, and centre in the bizarre hope that it would somehow help his situation at all.

"Now, now, Mikes." Pete shook his head, tutting a little, almost as if he was scolding a child. "That's really quite rude. It's not like I call things I don't like 'straight', is it?" And then Frank really had to fucking take a moment, because although this was a beyond stupid idea, there was no doubt in the matter that Pete executed it beyond brilliantly.

Silence fell over the whole room - everyone was completely stunned into silence by the fucking guts Pete had, and quite honestly, a large proportion of the room was expecting Mikey to punch him right in the face just about any moment now. But Mikey didn't - he was just as silent as the rest of the room.

The silence was broken as a kid with pushed back brown hair - Brendon - stood up and began clapping Pete, a smirk set across his face.

That brought Mikey back to life.

"What the hell are you clapping for fag?" Mikey screeched at Brendon, absolutely astounded that someone had come to Pete's defence before his, but Frank really was beyond absolutely shocked, because he'd expected Pete to be pretty much murdered here.

"I'm clapping because he totally fucking owned you." Brendon responded, flashing Pete a grin, who was beyond fucking glad that at least one person was on his side, because he was starting to doubt the effectiveness of this spontaneous coming out plan of his. "And really, Mikey, you shouldn't be as narcissistic to think that every gay guy fancies you - no one fucking fancies you, especially not Alicia."

"What the fuck? Are you a fag or what?" Mikey screamed out, glancing around the room, almost scouting out for someone suitably homophobic to come to his rescue, and laughably even glancing momentarily in Frank's direction.

"Do I look like a fucking cigarette to you?" Brendon snapped, rolling his eyes in an overemphasised camp gesture. "But if you're asking if I like guys, yes, I have a massive fucking gay crush on every fucking guy in the whole, except you, Mikey Way, because of course, no fucking homo." He responded, his voice laced with just about enough sarcasm to instantly kill Mikey, or kill off his sanity at the very least.

"You're fucking disgusting - the both of you!" Mikey yelled, storming out the room in a manner similar to the tantrum of a four year old and no one bothered to go after him, silencing falling over the room as Pete and Brendon sat back down until a voice piped up from the crowd.

"Is it true he likes Alicia?"

Silence once more, and Frank reckoned that Mikey deserved the question answered for just what he'd said today.

"Yes, yes he does." Frank responded, letting a smirk fall over his lips as Ray flashed him an 'oh my god what did you just do he's going to kill you' look. "Give over, Ray, as if he isn't pissed off with me already." Frank answered his friend's glance in a whisper.

"True." Ray let out a sigh as the room's volume slowly raised back up, almost as if nothing had ever happened, except just about every conversation was focused on Mikey, Pete, and Brendon. "But if he ever finds out that your 'girlfriend' has a dic-"

"He won't." Frank finished the sentence in a stern tone; his voice loosely used as a threat - he wasn't quite as good at blackmail as Jamia.

"Did you two really have..." Ray blushed as he couldn't quite push out the word, "last night?"

"Yeah, we did."

Ray let out a sigh. "I don't agree with this fully, but as you're my friend, I'm telling you to stay safe here, like we don't know this guy at all - he could be anyone."

"I know him, Ray."

"How well?"

"More than you'd guess, trust me on that one."

You know him more than you'd know, too, Frank wanted to added, but that'd force him into a question that he could never answer, because if Ray found out the identity of his boyfriend, there was no telling to just how much he reckoned Mikey would need to know about that.

Again, Ray's morals were questionable, and Frank was pretty much fucked, literally too, as Ray now knew.


	8. Like Romeo And Juliet But Without The Death

"Have you seen the new kid, Urie?" Pete asked, joining Brendon at his locker, having declared that the two of them were friends after the incident with Mikey in art, which kind of made Brendon regret saying anything at all. He did share a passionate hatred of Mikey Way with Pete though, or at least he thought so, not knowing the reality behind Pete's feelings towards the arrogantly homophobic asshole that was Mikey Way.

"No, why?" Brendon responded to Pete only out of the compulsion of manners, getting his books from his locker and putting them in his backpack without even a glance towards the other guy.

"He's pretty cute, y'know." Pete added, grabbing Brendon's attention immediately; the taller boy locking his locker and pulling his backpack up onto his shoulders and diverting his attention of Pete entirely at the mention of cute boys.

"I bet the cheer team are going to be all over him in like five seconds flat then." Brendon let out a sigh - all the cute ones were fucking straight, weren't they? Pete was literally the only gay guy he knew and he wasn't exactly bad looking, but Brendon knew there was no way he was going to be able to put up with that level of irritating on an even more frequent level than he already did.

"Actually, I heard that he's gay." Brendon's eyes widened at this, unsure of how much truth Pete's words held, if any at all, but at the mention of cute gay guys, Brendon wasn't quite stupid enough to be completely skeptical about this.

"What's his name? Is he in any of my classes?" Brendon spurted out and Pete wouldn't be surprised if he got out a notepad and started writing all of this down.

"What else? Do you want his address too?" Pete snorted, smirking at Brendon who didn't even blush, simply rolling his eyes because he was used to this from Pete by now.

"Shut up." Brendon shook his head, knowing that Pete was making him late to class with this bullshit, that he just happened to care a little too much about. "Just tell me - I'm late to music as it is."

"Perhaps you should just get to music and find out for yourself." Pete suggested with a winked and eyebrow rose into a position as straight as himself.

"Just fucking tell me what his name is, you ass." Brendon rolled his eyes, beyond fed up with Pete at this point. "And why you don't seem at all interested despite the fact he's cute and gay... he's not real... is he, Pete?"

"He is, I just have my affections set elsewhere." Pete explained winked at Brendon but mentioning no names for a very good reason, because although Brendon was particularly open minded, he doubted that anyone could possibly understand these messed feelings he had for a certain messed up person. Except Patrick, Patrick always seemed to understand Pete regardless of circumstance - Pete didn't know what he'd do without him.

"Meaning who?" Brendon asked, because even someone as ignorant as Pete knew that there wasn't a chance he wasn't going to be curious at the very least.

"How about I just tell you the name of your future husband and you pop off to music and seduce him, huh? How does that sound?" Pete asked, using the term 'future husband' all too casually, especially considering the fact that two of them hadn't even met yet.

"Sounds like you're avoiding the subject, but whatever, tell me about my 'future husband'." Brendon rolled his eyes, perhaps just a little eager to escape Pete and perhaps just a little too eager to assess the booty game of this new kid.

"His name, Brendon Urie, is Ryan Ross and one day I will be attending your wedding."

And let's just say that Pete wasn't wrong.

-

"Mr Urie - you're late." Came the voice of Mr Mitchell - a fat ginger man in his forties, who by his 'enthusiasm' Brendon could tell had once aspired of being in a band but his dreams had been rendered futile and was now stuck teaching music in a crappy high school, which Brendon wasn't all that surprised about, having heard his voice more than he'd like to since, the teacher insisted of performing a song or two every lesson almost as if his classes were episodes of X Factor.

"Yes, I noticed." Brendon replied, gaining a few giggles from the class sat in rows of desks, almost as if the seating arrangement was designed to be purposefully ignorant to the faulty keyboards lining the outside of the room in their masses - it was almost as if the school got them for free or something. They had at least forty keyboards and one drum set and like two guitars.

"Sit down next to Ryan there." Mr Mitchell completely ignored Brendon's cheek, gesturing vaguely to the, in Brendon's opinion, extremely cute boy sat on a desk by himself at the back of the room. Perhaps Brendon would have complained that the teacher was forcing him to sit somewhere when everyone else sat without a seating plan, that was if Ryan was the hottest piece of ass he'd ever seen.

For once, perhaps he'd have to... thank Pete.

"Hey," Ryan started up a conversation as Brendon sat down beside him, and the shorter boy was amazed at the fact that he barely even had to try here - Pete was definitely getting a medal or something for this one.

"Hey," Brendon responded, ignoring the teacher completely in order to talk to Ryan, knowing that he'd face no consequences, because it wasn't as if Mr Mitchell's eyes left his laptop screen for any amount of time longer than necessary to take the register each lesson, it was almost like he spent his lessons watching porn or something.

"I'm Ryan, as you heard." He introduced himself with a blush and Brendon couldn't but grin, wondering how weird it would be just to 'casually' ask him if he was gay.

"I'm Brendon, as you didn't." Brendon let a smirk set upon his lips. "You're the new kid, huh?" Ryan nodded in response. "Heard some rumours about you, and I was kind of wondering if they held any truth to them."

"What kind of rumours...?" Ryan's eyes widened as his face succumbed under the presence of a devilishly red blush. "I... I... what are people saying about me?"

"I heard that you're gay, Ryan." Brendon just spat it out, biting back a smirk as he watched the other boy's face for any sign of a reaction, however he was faced with nothing but silence and a downward gaze. "It's okay if you are, you know." He added with a smile. "It's not like I'm going to tease you for it or anything, seeing as I'm gay myself. I'm not quite that much of a hypocrite."

Ryan darted his gaze back up at the mention of Brendon's sexuality. "You're gay?"

"Yeah, are you?" Brendon replied with a smirk, watching as Ryan blushed under his gaze.

"Yeah... I am... I just don't know how it got out... you're the only person I've told..." Ryan mumbled, glancing around the music room almost as if he was in suspicion of everyone there.

"Well, you're wearing eyeliner, it's not exactly a secret, is it?"

-

"You're fucking stupid." The words left his mouth as if they were nothing more than common knowledge and that the possibility that the words held the power to offend and hurt was nothing but a myth. It wasn't quite ignorance, though, because he knew the effects and still continued on in this fashion - Bert just didn't care, and sometimes Gee didn't either.

"I know." Gee groaned out, pulling his knees up to his chest and the blanket further around him, wishing he could just disappear amongst the cushions of the sofa entirely, but of course, things were never quite that easy at all.

"I mean, I do some pretty stupid shit and Bob is the actual definition of a fucktard, but neither of us has ever screwed a little Catholic school boy." Bert snorted at the thought of it, he reckoned Gee had really screwed himself over this time, because Frank's mother may have had the appearance of taking it well, but who knew how she was going to react behind closed doors?

"He's seventeen..." Gee let out in a timid and breathy voice, his eyes reddened from crying and fixated upon the bleakness of the off white wall that lay directly in front of him, basically anywhere but Bert - he couldn't look at him right now. "Not seven."

"Still just a kid in the eyes of the law though, honey." Bert assured the twenty five year old of what he didn't want to know in an uncomfortably nonchalant tone - the guy had never been all that great at empathy. Sure he could do pity fucks but sympathy, nah.

"It's not fucking fair... why does he have to be so perfect and so young?" Gee practically yelled out now, throwing his body back against the sofa, his eyes intriguing themselves with the ceiling and the stains that no one was ever quite sure how they got there.

"You're just lovesick-" Bert attempted to wane away Gee's whining lovesick drivel and get them onto the thing that was important here - Bert could only offer him one thing, and if Gee didn't want it then he didn't quite know why he was still sat here listening to him rationalise his actions of what the law would deem rape.

Bert knew Gee would never do that and that he really wasn't even capable of it, but Bert was a realistic person and there was very little he could other than offer his sympathies in the form of getting into bed with him.

"No, I'm just sober. Too fucking sober..." Gee sat up at that, locking his eyes with Bert's like he'd just encountered a eureka moment, and Gee had, but his eureka moment was far from clever and simply consisted of taking whatever shit Bob could give him right now. "Get Bob over and tell him I need something - tell him I'll even pay."

Bert raised his eyebrows at that, but he grabbed his cellphone, giving the matter nothing more of a shrug - the guy was an adult, a stupid one, but an adult nonetheless, and in no way was Bert responsible of just how much he messed himself up. "You really are fucking stupid, Gee."

Gee ignored his remark, having heard it already, and in fact leaping to his feet with some newfound motivation in the form of intoxication and slow self-administered suicide. "Please tell me we've got something other than beer left."

Bert looked up at him for a moment, searching the twenty five year old's face for any sign of sarcasm or a jokey tone, before answering him truthfully, because that was what Bert did. "Yeah we've got some vodka on the top shelf, honey."

"Don't call me that." Gee stopped for a moment, giving a Bert a weird look as he lingered in the doorway and Bert glued his eyes to his phone screen as he texted Bob. "Are you jealous or something?"

Bert jerked his head up at that, sending the other boy a look that mostly resembled a glare than anything else. "What? Of the court charges you're going to face or the hangover you're going to get in the morning?"

"No, of Frank, the boy I'm in love with." Gee answered, holding his ground particularly well, which seemed to be unusual when it came to Bert. "Because we didn't have anything 'real', you know that, Bert. And whatever we did have, we had a long time ago. I'm just letting you know, okay?"

Bert looked entirely unfazed by Gee's statement and chose to respond with a roll of his eyes and words dripping with carefully spiked sarcasm. "Dream on, loverboy."

"Don't call me that either." Gee added, narrowing his eyes at the guy slouched out on the sofa, his cell phone still in his hands.

"What am I supposed to call you then? Kid fucker?" Bert snorted aloud, playing off a joke that Gee could only scowl out, disappearing behind the door, in search of alcohol before Bert could even turn back to look at him.

"Hey, Gee?" He ignored Bert's voice calling out after him, grabbing a bottle of vodka from the top shelf and curling up against the kitchen countertop, wrapping himself up in the comfort blanket of slurred words and a spinning head.

It was all fine, Gee thought; perhaps the hangover didn't even matter, because the clarity and calm right now certainly paid off.

-

"I heard what happened with you and Mikey... and Brendon..." Patrick piped up, watching Pete's eyes set straight ahead upon the horizon as the two of them sat outside in Patrick's garden; the ginger haired boy having forgotten his key, of course. Neither of them minded all that much though; it was quite nice out, after all.

"Hasn't everyone by now?" Pete pointed out, his tone coming out not quite as light hearted as he'd intended and leaving Patrick with a mildly stunned and slightly intimidated expression set upon his, perhaps concerningly, pale face.

"Yeah... I guess..." Patrick mumbled in response, letting his cheeks fill with a devilish blush, which he struggled to hide with an awkwardly placed hand and an unnecessary turn of his head.

"Sorry..." Pete let out a sigh, leaning back against the brick wall of Patrick's house and wishing they could be inside with the central heating and distractions that brought forward conversation topics that didn't somehow manage to revolve around Mikey Way. "I... I just... he didn't take it well did, he? And that was with me laughing in his face about the fact that I 'could ever possibly have a crush on him'..."

"I'm sorry." Patrick stopped himself from saying anything else at that point, because he knew that Pete wouldn't react well, perhaps even as badly as Mikey, if he accidentally let anything slip about just how he felt regarding his best friend. It'd be better for their friendship if he just didn't say anything - it was just a silly little crush, after all, wasn't it?

"Don't worry 'bout it." Pete reassured him with a tone laced with far too much simplicity and that was that, leaving the pair in a state of extended silence and Patrick's mind on a rollercoaster track dead-set on the track downwards into turmoil.

"What about Brendon?" He suddenly found himself spurting out before he could gasp rather embarrassingly audibly and struggle to slap one hand over his mouth in more of a gesture of habit than apology.

"What about Brendon...?" Pete mimicked - however his tone was fuelled by confusion rather than a mind racing with thoughts varying in several thousand degrees of nonsensical.

"I thought... you two... might....?" Patrick tossed a glance in Pete's direction; his cheeks heavy with a pinkish blush and his eyes unable to quite meet Pete's, who simply laughed in response, almost as if Patrick had just suggested the most ridiculous thing, which in a way, he had.

"No." Pete shook his head firmly, giving Patrick that wild madman grin/smirk that both concerned and excited the other boy. "He likes that new kid... the one that there was a rumour being gay - Ryan. Yeah he is actually gay, and so's Brendon so I'm pretty sure that's going to happen within the next week or so. So, Patrick, even if I wanted to date Brendon, I doubt that kid would let me. Which I don't, by the way."

"I didn't-" Patrick flustered as he stumbled over his words in struggled attempt at forming an explanation.

"It looks I'm going to be single for a long time with the way things are going with Mikey... huh?" Pete stifled a laugh, turning to glance at Patrick, who found himself in a situation of literally biting his tongue to force the rushed and desperate 'I love you' back down his throat and deep into the pits of hell where it belongs.

"Yeah..." He finally managed to croak out in response.

"What's wrong with you, dude? You catching cold or something? It's your own silly fault for forgetting your keys, you know." Pete continued to laugh along in his ignorance and Patrick remained silent, his eyes drifting out across the horizon and wondering how much easier things would be if his best friend hadn't decided that for some godforsaken reason, falling in love with Mikey Way was a good idea.

"Do you think you're ever going to tell Mikey how you feel?" Patrick found the words slipping out, his mind completely elsewhere than reality and he took this as a warning to refocus himself before something a little more private, a little more personal, a little more homosexual, and a little more friendship wrecking slipped out.

"I don't know... I just... it's unrealistic but I can't help but not like him and that's so messed up, I know, but he hates his brother just for being gay. His parents kicked his brother out just for that! You can't imagine how homophobic he is." Pete let out a sigh, throwing his head back against the wall, bumping his head on the brickwork in the process, and letting out a chain of curses in response, causing a giggle to slip Patrick's lips.

"And now his brother is dating Frank Iero..." Pete laughed aloud at that one, an amused smirk spreading across his face, his eyes lighting up in a rather dopey fashion. "If that's not karma then I don't know what is."

"What do you think he'll do to Frank though if he ever finds out about him dating his brother?" Patrick piped up, his smile twisting down into a timid little lip parted frown.

"Honestly, that's something I'd rather not think about." Pete let out a sigh, hating to see the bad in Mikey; because he couldn't help but hold the belief deep down that, he really was a good guy. Love was crazy, huh?

But sometimes it wasn't just dancing around a field with your slightly drunk best friends at midnight kind of crazy, sometimes it was strapped to the wall of a mental hospital and force fed through a tube kind of crazy.

And of course, the latter seemed to be all the more prominent in Pete's life right now.

-

"Honestly, Iero, I don't know what you're talking about - I reckon what I said to Mikey was just about the best idea I've ever had." Pete rolled his stupidity with laughter and a disapproving glance to the cigarette Frank finished and stubbed out against the floor.

Jamia wasn't here today and he really knew he'd have to get her back for making him put up with Pete practically all day. Frank wondered if the guy even had any friends whatsoever and then he remembered just whom he was talking about here.

Frank didn't even have the slightest clue as to Jamia's whereabouts, but he assumed that she was probably somewhere with Lindsey; the two of them had gotten really rather close lately, and he assumed that Jamia couldn't help but be jealous of the fact that Frank had finally actually found someone.

"It was fucking stupid, Pete. C'mon, let's go - I'm done smoking." Pete put any small moral obligations aside as this was pretty much the friendliest thing Frank or anyone except Patrick had said to him for centuries, and he skipped school with Frank Iero, who was only trying to get rid of him in the process, and really when it came to this, morals were scattered everywhere.

"This sounds like a stupid idea." Pete corrected him as they made their way out of school, passing the gate and the figures of Ryan and Brendon stood awfully close together for the situation to be anything but highly suspicious.

"That's Brendon and Ryan-" Pete exclaimed in a hushed whisper of a tone, grabbing Frank and pulling him back almost as if they were wildlife TV show presenters and the two guys in front of them were easily startled antelopes and not recently de-closeted teenagers.

"Yes, and why are we standing here staring at them like creeps?" Frank pushed past Pete, sending the guy a slightly concerned glance before simply walking over to the two guys aforementioned, both of whom jumped at Frank's presence, because they really had been getting awfully close and in both ways.

"Frank, I-" Brendon's face blushed horrifically and he ended up with an awful resemblance to a perfectly ripe beetroot, which wasn't really the best of looks. "I... we..."

"It's okay. Carry on with whatever you were doing, I'm going as soon as Pete stops standing round the corner like an awkward fuck, don't worry." He added with a casual smile, watching in mildly misplaced amusement as Ryan flushed a horrible shade of pink and then failed to hide it with his brown mop like fringe.

"I'm Frank." He introduced himself to the new kid as he came to realise that he'd heard nothing more than rumours about this kid and most of them via Pete too, so of course the credibility wasn't exactly up to scratch at all. "You're Ryan, I know. I've heard about you, mainly from Pete." He added into the silence, glancing behind him as Pete awkwardly trailed towards the three of them.

"Pete, what the hell were you doing?" Brendon asked the question on both of their lips, rendering Pete deeper into a further stage of awkwardness and general oddity.

"I was... uhh... I didn't want to interrupt what you two had here you see-" Pete rolled an excuse of his tongue in a painfully unbelievable tone, almost leaving me cringing at the notion.

"You were 'observing' them, if I remember correctly." Frank added with a smirk, enjoying ruining Pete's life just a little too much and perhaps it wasn't exactly the most moral and feeling conscious decision he could have made here, but in his mind, he reckoned Pete deserved it for just how much he'd caused Frank to want to shoot the both of them today.

"That's kind of creepy, Pete..." Brendon let the words fall from his lips as he looked over Pete's guiltily blushing face; there was no need for a confession to be made, especially when he looked like that.

"The way you two aren't married yet is also kind of creepy." Pete gestured to the two boys that had just met days ago and Frank really couldn't help but cringe at how he really wasn't doing anything but making things worse for himself here.

"Pete..." Of course, though, Frank's protests were to be ignored.

"I was totally just about to ask him on a date, though." Brendon added, in what was either the most stupid or most fucking clever way Frank had ever witnessed and quite honestly, the look on Ryan's face was priceless. "If that makes you feel better."

"It makes me feel better." Ryan piped up, locking his gaze with Brendon's, almost as if he couldn't quite believe it, even when the two of them were very obviously beyond married.

"It most certainly makes me feel better, but not in a creepy way, I promise." Pete stumbled over his words as they hurtled from his lips as what seemed like a million miles a minute, but right now, neither Ryan or Brendon seemed to care; the two of them far too occupied with one another to pay any attention to the rest of the world.

"C'mon, Pete." Frank let out a sigh, gesturing for Pete to leave the newfound, almost star struck couple alone for a while, because although this would certainly render him beyond hypocritical, Frank was not the type to be forced to witness people getting all NC-17 in front of him. "Let's leave them alone - I reckon we've annoyed them quite enough by now."

"No, it's fine, you got me a date, really. It was so much easier to say it like this, y'know, with the pressure on him to say yes. So thanks Pete." Brendon chuckled a little as he spoke, ignoring the questionable looks from Ryan's direction.

"I would have said yes anyway, you doofus."

"Whatever."

-

Frank was beyond thankful to have gotten rid of Pete at the corner shop - simply distracting the sixteen year old with candy somehow seemed to work and give Frank enough time to disregard his morals and make a get away, headed straight for a certain bungalow on a certain road that he'd memorised by now.

It didn't take him all that long to get there, and really Frank was just beyond relieved that Pete hadn't somehow tracked him down and followed him, because all he needed after a stressful day of putting up with Pete and with the aid of only one cigarette, all he needed was Gee, his not quite boyfriend and perhaps getting sucked off.

Frank would really fancy that right now.

And of course, Bert opened the door. Frank reckoned he almost seemed to do this on purpose, almost as if he was like some sort of cockblock or something, and it really was an awful inconvenience. "Your fucking boyfriend's drunk off his fucking face right now, so I wouldn't recommend coming in, but if you're stupid enough to think you want to deal with that then by all means take him off my hands, whatever."

Frank just stopped for a moment, glaring up at Bert, letting him know that nothing he said mattered to him at all, and then barging past the guy, who spat back curses in his direction as Frank made his way through the layout of the bungalow that he'd now memorised, making a beeline to Gee's bedroom and pushing the door open, it slamming back against the wall with an energy and anger which Frank wasn't even aware he possessed.

"Frankie..." Gee exclaimed, his eyes lighting up as he recognised the figure standing in the doorway to his bedroom, his words slurred and a vodka bottle on the bed beside him and yet Frank couldn't still help but love him.

"Gee...?" He asked, his voice cautious in tone due to a horrible inexperience with severely drunk twenty five year old cross dressers. "Did you drink all of this?" He held up the empty vodka bottle, sitting down beside his not quite boyfriend, speaking to him like he was nothing more than a five year old... a five year old that stomached a whole bottle of vodka.

"Yep." He nodded in response, hiccupping a little, almost as if to prove his point and Frank shook his head in a mixture of disbelief and irritance, grabbing Gee's hand and jumping a little as the twenty five year old pulled him back onto his lap were Frank was almost held prisoner with his head leaning back against Gee's chest.

"You're so drunk." Frank rolled his eyes, peering up to meet the hazel gaze of his captor, who just let a cheeky grin slip across his lips as their gazes met.

"I feel all bubbly. It's kind of like butterflies and now that you're here that's just double butterflies." Gee admitted with a grin and a sort of absent minded tone to his voice that made him sound like he was on something more than vodka.

"Double butterflies, huh?" Frank raised his eyebrows, leaning back into Gee. "You wouldn't happen to know if Jamia's been with Lindsey today, because she's left me alone and I've survived off one cigarette whilst having to put up with literally the most annoying kid today. He clings to me like some sort of fucking safety blanket and only because we're both gay, I mean, Jamia even reckons he likes me, but he told me the guy he likes is straight."

"One cigarette?" Gee giggled, popping a smoke between Frank's lips and lighting it in his mouth from behind his back, doing his best not to set fire to Frank instead, and for someone as drunk as he was, he did a pretty good job. Which meant simply that Frank was still alive.

"Did I ever tell you that you're the best boyfriend ever?" Frank asked, giggling a little as he inhaled as much nicotine as his lungs could practically carry before they shrivelled away right on the spot.

"We're not technically boyfriends though." Gee pointed out the obvious that Frank had managed to miss and the seventeen year old's smile faded on the very spot, misinterpreting Gee's words beyond belief. "I would like to be, though." He added.

"So would I." Frank breathed out a sigh of relief, which at first he hadn't intended to be quite so obvious as it was, but it seemed that God had other plans regarding his embarrassment, but Frank reckoned that perhaps that if God did exist, he would probably just about hate him for his constant sinning.

"So... Frankie, be my boyfriend?" He giggled, kissing Frank's neck a little - the kiss all lips and saliva and messily so, as he was beyond drunk, leaving elegance as just about the last of his priorities right now.

"Are you just saying that because you're drunk?" Frank asked, wearing a blush like his second skin.

"No, I am drunk, yes, but I'm saying that because I love you!" Gee exclaimed, giggling like hell and Frank had to take a moment to process what Gee had just said to him.

This all seemed perfect but Frank couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps things wouldn't have gone like this if Gee was sober, and he was in no way allowed to prefer his boyfriend in an intoxicated state, but those three words had an awful habit of messing with Frank's head.

"Good." Frank finally let out with a grin, praying that Gee was drunk enough both not to notice or care. "I'm glad."

"So am I. And you know what, you never answered my question." Gee added, with a devious smirk and slight slur of his words that brought Frank so painfully back into reality.

"Yeah." He finally let out after an awkward pause gone on too long, and an exhalation of far too much nicotine. "I will be your boyfriend."

"Such a hard decision, wasn't it?" Gee asked, teasing him with his lips against Frank's neck once more.

"Of course it was - a close call too."

"Oh shut up, you love me really. We're like Romeo and Juliet but without the death and you know I look better in a dress than Juliet."  
And he did.

-


	9. Let's Go Discuss My Butt In Further Detail

Frank was sat on the kitchen countertop of what was technically Bert's bungalow, although Gee would force you to agree that it belonged to him to. The seventeen year old let a grin pass his lips as he pulled his knees up to his chest and his back against the wall, his cigarette - technically Gee's, but Frank wasn't fussed, held loosely in his hand, the cigarette ash dropping clumsily into the kitchen sink, but of course, Frank's attention was otherwise occupied.

"I swear we fucking had some..." The twenty five year old gave a grumbled tone into the silence, bent over as he rummaged through the kitchen cupboards, his miniskirt clad ass high in there in Frank's direction, so perhaps he wasn't that bothered if his boyfriend was forced to continue searching for ice cream for the next five days.

Boyfriend.

Frank was really ecstatic with the fact that he could now refer to Gee by that, and in fact even further pleased by the fact that the 'boyfriends' thing didn't just apply to drunken Gee, but apparently sober Gee also.

"What the hell are you looking for?" Bert appeared in the doorway - almost out of nowhere, but then again, believe it or not - he did live here, so it wasn't all that unexpected. When he received no response from either Frank or Gee, he walked further into the room, perhaps in search of a visual answer, but getting slightly distracting by his housemate's ass in that miniskirt, much as Frank had.

"Nice fucking panties, you slutty little shit." Gee sprang up at that, turning to face Bert with widened eyes and a face bearing a horrifically strong resemblance to a tomato. "You're just asking to be fucked in those, honey, and with a skirt that short-"

"You're just asking to get punched in the face speaking like that... honey." Frank rolled his eyes, mimicking Bert's words as he shot his boyfriend's housemate the dirtiest look known to man.

"You've got a seventeen year old sticking up for you, huh?" Bert snorted, his eyes rolling back into their sockets a little, and Frank was really seriously considering punching Bert, and he reckoned he would have if the guy wasn't near enough a decade older than him. "Pathetic."

"Ice cream." Gee snapped out through gritted teeth, answering Bert's original question, despite the fact he was far from caring about the answer to it anymore. "I'm looking for ice cream. Do we have any?" He continued, his voice stern and his gaze locked with Bert's, in some sort of desperate bid to convince him that he didn't need Frank to 'stick up for him', not that he wasn't secretly so fucking thankful for him having said what he had.

"Nah," Bert chuckled, rolling casually out of their previous topic of conversation, almost as if it hadn't even occurred and walking around to stand beside Frank, almost as if the younger of the two wasn't seriously considering beating the other up. "Bob scoffed it all the other week after he threw up on the patio and set fire to the shed. Comfort food, whatever. I could convince him that he owes us it, but I think even Bob has the brains to realise that drug dealers don't do ice cream deals."

"You can convince Bob anything if you try hard enough." Gee added with a roll of his eyes and an awkward slight pull down of his skirt, still feeling a little uncomfortable in response to Bert's earlier comments.

"Why did you want ice cream anyway?" Bert asked, his eyebrows raised as he looked between the two of them, betting it was something to do with the seventeen year old - the child, stood in his kitchen.

"Felt like it." Gee said with a casual shrug of his shoulders, before turning back to his boyfriend, which was also a term he was proud to use. "Come on, Frankie, I wouldn't want us to bother Bert here, would you?"

"Oh, Gee, sweetie, I'm only bothered by the fact that you're fucking a seventeen year old." Bert again, oh so fucking tactfully added. "Letting that pretty little ass go to waste." He ran his fingers down Gee's side at that, the twenty five year jumping out of Bert's grasp with a start.

"What is your fucking problem?" Frank jumped up at that, deciding he'd had more than enough out of Bert today.

"I don't know, kid. I'd ask the police, huh?" Bert snorted, clearly finding his joke far too funny when no one else did. "Ask them what's the problem when the grown man fucks you. I'm sure they'll enlighten you."

"How about you ask them what's the problem when you make sexual advances on someone that doesn't want you to? I'm sure they'll enlighten you."

-

"He's an asshole." Frank proclaimed once they were safely in Gee's room, his words of course aimed at Bert.

"I know." Gee added with a sigh; an empty, hollow kind of sigh that held secrets of its own. "Just have to deal with that, though. I'd rather live with an asshole than be homeless. He isn't that badly usually - I think something's happened with his family... that's what usually gets him like this. Just leave him be a while."

Frank glanced at his boyfriend for a while, unsure how to respond or if to respond at all. "If you say so, but-"

"But nothing, Frankie." Gee finished for him, sitting down on the bed beside him and entwining their hands. "Let's talk about something else, huh? What's going on with you?"

"My friend Ray knows I'm gay, he knows I have a boyfriend, and he knows I fucked said boyfriend, but he doesn't know that said boyfriend is you..." Frank announced, his face breaking into an awkward smile as a blush passed his cheeks as he began to relive the memories.

"Tell him, I wanna meet him." Gee's face lit up with a grin as he fell back onto the bed behind them, his eyes fixating upon the ceiling.

"That wouldn't be such a good idea - he knows who you are- well, not... you but 'Gerard'... he's Mikey's best friend too." Frank let out a sigh as he fell back onto the bed beside Gee. "I wish things didn't have to be like that though. I wish I didn't even know Mikey and you were just you and that was that. This is a mess."

"All the best things have to be like that though." Gee let a smirk fall over his lips, his eyes filling with that smug look and Frank could guess the calibre of what was coming next. "Why would you care about something so much if it was just taken for granted? As much as we all hate to admit it but we really don't care all that much about the roof over our heads and food on our plates, we just expect them. Us, however, that wasn't at all expected, and it isn't at all easy, and that's what makes it just so much more worthwhile."

"Shut the fuck up, you fucking dork."

"Rude."

"Aren't I just?"

-

"Fuck... fuck... fuck... I'm so sorry." Curses fell from Mikey's lips like bombshells as he found that his absent minded thoughts combined with his generally lack of bother to really look where he was going ended up with him colliding into another person.

"Don't worry, it's fine." Came the girl's voice as she scrambled to pick up the books she'd dropped, Mikey of course rushing forward to help her, despite how much he reckoned she'd be pissed off with him for. "Thanks." She added, noticing the extra pair of hands on her books, her gaze flickering upwards to meet Mikey's, whose heartbeat practically stopped in response.

"Alicia."

The word; her name, fell from his lips like gravity was willing it out - a huge weight dropped from him almost instantaneously.

"Mikey." She mimicked with a small smile twisting its way onto her face, leaving the younger Way brother completely in shock as of how on earth she had ever managed to learn his name. And where from? The 'top ten losers' list he'd heard by rumour to be written in the girls' toilets by the language block.

"How do you even know who I am?" Mikey exclaimed, perhaps having not intended for those words to sound quite so pathetic when he said them aloud, but it certainly looked as if luck had to be getting him back for letting Alicia fucking Simmons actually speak to him.

Mikey already knew that he wasn't going to shut up about this for months.

She giggled a little at that, standing up and putting her books back into her locker, leaving Mikey to peal his completely dysfunctional body off the floor and manage to somehow gather the courage to join her once more, begging that another word from her lips could be uttered in his direction.

"I'm friends with Ray's brother - your name has come up in conversation. And I see you at netball practices rather often, you there for your girlfriend or something?" She asked a question that was put all too casually in an attempt to hide the incredibly slyly hidden 'are you single?'.

Mikey however could barely even function at the notion that Alicia Simmons had deemed him a decent enough human being to possibly have a girlfriend, let alone one that was on the fucking netball team.

"I.. uhh... don't have a girlfriend..." He finally managed to choke out between tomato red blushes and nervous twitches, which really made him glad that Alicia was still focused more so on getting her books into her locker than his face right now.

"Really? Oh, I thought you did." She turned to face him at that moment, raising one eyebrow as she came to notice his still rather pink face. "Why are you there then?" She let a smirk slip onto her lips then, winking at him.

"Oh... I... uhh... I have an interest in the game... I..." Mikey literally reckoned he'd rather die in that moment, and although he knew that the moment he first spoke to Alicia would be slightly traumatising, but this was just a fucking death wish.

"Bullshit, Mikey Way." She rolled her eyes, turning her head so they were exactly face to face. "I reckon they made those miniskirts that short for no reason other than that." Mikey's eyes practically bulged out of his skull at that. "Then again, I suppose it makes a change from the fifty year old married creepy P.E. teacher staring at my butt. Perhaps there is nothing I can complain about here other than your complete lack of subtlety - get some sunglasses or something, dude."

"You know my last name-" Was of course the only thing Mikey could choke out in the vegetable like state that Alicia's words had rendered him to.

"Yes, I do. Are you not even going to comment upon the rather obvious fact that you have taken an interest in my butt?" She asked with a hand on her hip as she leant so casually against the locker, leaving Mikey to stand rather awkwardly beside her in a clumsy position, his legs bent a little weirdly at the knee and his hands behind his back.

"I... uhh... it's a very nice butt...." He flushed as the words left his lips, only coming to realise that perhaps this wasn't quite the response she'd wanted after he'd already said it.

"Thank you." She let out a sigh, shaking her head, but with a smile never leaving her lips, the bell for class ringing throughout the hallways and forcefully waking Mikey from his Alicia focused dream state.

"Shit... I..." Mikey cursed once more, grabbing his backpack from where it was slowly falling from his shoulders like one drop of water slowly falling from the turned off tap.

"Hey, Mikey Way, do you perhaps want to meet me at the gates after school and we can go discuss my butt in further detail?" 

"Is... is that a date?" Mikey would probably need to go see the nurse after this, because he wasn't going to make it through History without either getting a horrible erection, or passing out, or perhaps, if God was feeling particularly cruel, both.

"How about you meet me and find out?"

And then like nothing had happened, Alicia Simmons had disappeared amongst the crowd, leaving Mikey stood like a star struck zombie beside her locker as he prayed to God and everyone ever even mentioned in the bible that this wasn't a fucking dream.

Not that he had a tendency to dream about Alicia, or anything... Of course not.

-

"Seriously, Frank, you need to be careful - who knows what Mikey's going to do when he finds out you're..." Ray began, speaking to Frank in a concerned almost maternal tone as they sat on the steps outside the music block eating lunch, for his words only to come to a halt, as he caught none other than Mikey Way practically skipping towards the two of them.

"What the fuck is wrong with him?" Frank had looked up and followed Ray's gaze in the silence, of course only to wish that he hadn't once he really got acquainted with the sight before him. Frank wasn't even sure Mikey possessed the capability to smile.

"He's happy, there seriously must be something." Ray responded, his eyes never leaving the unexpectedly cheery Mikey as he pushed Frank aside to sit down between the two of them, glancing between his friends with a giddy smile on his face.

"What the hell is up with you?" Frank was the one to ask the question, Ray still staring at Mikey with his jaw hanging what seemed to be miles away from his face, which Mikey was of course too caught up in his own matters to even take the slightest of notice of.

"Guess who just got a date-" And he couldn't even continue before Ray attacked with what seemed to be several million questions.

"No... Oh my... who the hell would ever agree to go on a date with you? This isn't fair, I don't want to be the only single one..." Ray brought his smile up into a jokey pout as Frank couldn't help but laugh in response, and he didn't know who to feel sorry for more - Ray, the only single one now, or Mikey, who didn't know Frank's 'girlfriend' was actually his brother, or whoever the hell had been mad enough to let Mikey bribe them to go on a date with him.

"I have a date with Alicia." Mikey's smirk simply twisted around his lips, and Ray went as pale as a sheet as he came to remember that stupid fucking bet he'd made and how the hell he'd ever manage to get fifty dollars within the next few days. Hell, at this rate, it looked as if he'd have to turn to prostitution.

"Well, I do believe that's fifty dollars you owe him, Ray." Frank added, biting back his smirk as Ray sent him death glares and Frank remembered that since Ray knew just about enough information to permanently ruin his life, perhaps in future he should be just a little bit nicer to him.

"Fuck you." And Frank reckoned that was first time Ray had ever dropped the 'f bomb'. "You know I'm saving up for that guitar, you assholes."

"Then you shouldn't have made a bet you wouldn't win." Mikey added with a smirk, sticking his tongue out as he spoke, and he ended up looking just slightly creepy in the process, and just a little bit like a tired and rather old dog.

"You know what, I don't believe you." Ray smirked, raising his eyebrows in Mikey's direction, again most likely stepping into something that would result in another state of raised eyebrows and financial discomfort.

"Go on, then, ask her." Mikey let a smirk for Ray to be jealous of, fall over his lips, leaving Frank sat beside the two of them, wondering where the hell anyone's common sense had gone here.

"Wouldn't that be a bit weird to go up to your 'girlfriend' who I've never spoken to-" Ray began, badly attempting to conceal the fact that he got really uncomfortable and embarrassingly nervous when it came to talking to girls, especially ones like Alicia Simmons, ones that were brave enough to date Mikey Way. That took fucking guts.

"Guys, I'll go talk to Pete - he knows just about every bit of gossip, and then we'll determine who gets the fifty dollars, and if anyone complains about this decision, then I'm getting the fifty dollars." Frank stood up, passing mildly intimating looks to both of his friends who began glaring at him as if he had just announced that he'd committed mass genocide last night.

"Like Pete's going to know anything - that guy is fucking stupid, and a fag-" Mikey began, somehow finding an excuse to turn absolutely everything into a homophobic rant, which was something Frank most certainly did not appreciate, and then found himself blushing a little as Ray shot him an 'are you okay' glance. Ray really should have reckoned that Frank would have been used to this by now.

"If Pete knows anything, it's gossip." Ray interrupted Mikey, mostly for Frank's sake now, and the guy seriously needed a medal for keeping with Frank even when he'd reminded Mikey that he owed him fifty dollars. Frank reckoned Ray just was utterly adamant in his disbelief of Mikey and Alicia's new romantic relationship, not that Frank was entirely convinced either, but Mikey Way didn't fucking smile for just anything.

Which of course he proved with the scowl he sent the two of them, making sure everyone knew that he was even slightly displeased with the fact that he hadn't instantly received his fifty dollars - as if anyone just carried that amount of money around with them, especially to school.

Unlike Pete Wentz, Ray wasn't stupid.

-

It only took Frank five minutes of pushing through crowds and ignoring assholes until he found himself at the art department, where Pete stood, talking to a small, ginger kid, who as Frank got closer, he recognised as Patrick.

"Hey, Pete." Frank called out, gaining the attention of the emo boy, and his slightly less emo friend. "Do you happen to know anything about something to do with Mikey?"

"Oh, don't worry, Frank." Patrick added with a small smile, and a slight glare in Pete's direction, "he's an absolute expert when it comes to Mikey Way."

"Patrick-" Pete snapped, shoving the other boy a little, leaving Frank to glance between the two of them and take a moment to wonder as to what the hell he could have possibly interrupted.

"Well, yeah, you're the place to go for gossip and all that kind of shit, and Mikey claims he's got a date with-" Frank couldn't even finish, in a rather similar manner as to when Mikey had originally told him and Ray. He reckoned the idea of anyone finding Mikey Way attractive was just about as alien to everyone else as it was to him and Ray.

"Has he really?" Patrick asked, his eyes widening, fixating upon Frank, before he shot a glance in Pete's direction.

"I don't know, that's kind of what I came here to verify - something about a bet between Mikey and Ray. Ray said that he'd give Mikey fifty dollars if he got a date with Alicia by the end of this week." Frank explained, his voice coming out all too casually, as he was of course completely unaware regarding the affect his words were having on Pete and Patrick.

"Alicia... Alicia fucking Simmons... what the fuck- no..." Frank could barely even compose himself before Pete just ran off, heading in anywhere away from here.

"What-" Frank could only spit out, before turning to Patrick, who was donning a rather sad expression, which of course ended up twisting both Frank's gut and conscience into several knots.

"It's complicated." Was all Patrick offered as an explanation as he stepped forward to stand besides Frank.

"Should I go after him?" Frank asked, in utter shock at what to do, because whatever this was, it was utterly un-Pete like, and that meant something had to be wrong - something had to be beyond wrong, and of course, Frank just couldn't figure out as to what.

"No, don't worry, I guess that's my job. He's just a little, I don't know, out of it today... I don't know exactly, but I heard from Ryan that he took some pills last night... it's nothing personal, he's probably just a little bit out of it, I guess..." Patrick trailed off, his eyes drifting downwards as he spoke, because of course, he couldn't help but feel like this all had been his fault, having told Pete only moments before that maybe he should just talk to Mikey about how he felt instead of bottling it up inside him and letting it destroy him in the process.

"So, do you know anything about any truth to Mikey and Alicia?" Frank asked as a last ditch resort; of course very much doubting that Patrick would have any idea whatsoever.

"No, I'm sorry, I'm guessing the only thing you can do is ask Alicia personally."

And as much as Frank didn't want to, it really looked like he had to.

-

Finding Alicia was easy enough, and the fact that she was stood at her locker without all her friends clustered around her in a big mess of giggling girls was just a fucking godsend.

Frank really didn't get girls, not at all, and he really reckoned it a good job that he was gay, even if this was the only time where something like that would ever apply. Jamia was just an exception - she was different. Perhaps, lesbians, he could handle... straight girls, not so much.

Thank god he wasn't some sort of hunk on the football team, because straight girls that were attracted to him would be an absolutely enormous no no.

"Hey, Alicia, can I ask you something? Sorry if it sounds weird, but it's just something I heard and I wanted to know if it was true." Frank stood beside her, a little flustered and definitely rather overwhelmed.

"Sure." She smiled back at him, which was really something Frank hadn't expected at all. Then again, Frank had actually spoken to Alicia before and he was stuck in the assumption that from Mikey's attraction to her, she was a typical high school popular bitch.

"Yeah, something about you and Mikey Way." He put it casually, not wanting to be cruel enough to directly embarrass Mikey if he'd been lying, but perhaps if he had lied straight to their faces and then demanded fifty dollars, perhaps he did deserve whatever embarrassment his actions warranted. "And a date." He added with a raised eyebrow, emitting a reddish blush from her relatively pale cheeks.

"I... uhh... how did you find out about that?" She asked, blushing ferociously as her eyes drifted to the floor, and oh my god she could not be serious.

"So is it true?" Frank exclaimed, perhaps just a little too loud and with raised eyebrows to match, and really, his facial expression was laughter worthy right now.

"Yeah..." She exhaled rather loudly, "but please don't tell anyone, I want to keep this on the down low. How did you find out?"

"Mikey told me."

"Oh, I guess that's alright - you two are friends aren't you? But can you ask him to not go boasting about it?" Little did she know just how fucking hard it would be to get Mikey to ever shut up about anything, then again, this was Alicia we were talking about, so perhaps just the mention of her name would transform him into a loyal respect person right away.

"I can try, but it's Mikey, of course."

"Of course, it's just... not something I want everyone to know about."

"Honestly if he went around telling people, I doubt anyone would believe him - I didn't."

"Oh okay, good. It's just privacy, you know."

"Yeah."

But part of Frank didn't. Part of Frank couldn't help but feel like there was something wrong here, and that something would most likely result in Mikey ending up getting hurt, which despite his on and off hatred for the guy, was something he'd never wish upon him.

And it scared Frank just how little either of them knew about Alicia, and perhaps he would have been able to ask Pete, if there wasn't all that completely unexplainable shit going on with him right now. It was confusing to say the least.

Or perhaps Frank was being a dickhead, a stupid dickhead, who was just reluctant to admit that anyone in the world could be honestly attracted to Mikey Way.

-


	10. World War Pete

"Pete, we... we need to talk... I know... I know... you don't want to, but I..." Patrick exhaled loudly, his breath heavy as he knocked for what seemed like the thousandth time on his best friend's bedroom door. His heavy breathing used only as a mask for his tears and how he needed to cover them before Pete opened the door, if ever of course. He held grudges and wallowed in his sadness to an extreme, and honestly, Patrick was terrified he'd never see the same best friend again.

Pete was always more in love with Mikey than he let on, and it was simply a matter of long-term friendship that had allowed Patrick to see just what he never told anyone.

"You matter, Pete, I promise you that. I promise you... I just... you matter, and... Right now it might not seem like it... but... but Mikey is irrelevant... let him go... go and date her, you don't need him, okay?"

"You don't understand... you don't... fucking understand- what... it's like." Came the choked up and sobbing voice hidden behind the bedroom door. "What’s it's like to love someone who'll never... who will never... who could never love you at all... not even as a friend... to love someone who hates you is just a death wish."

"I know what it's like, Pete." Patrick found the truth springing free without warning and his head spinning as he wondered where they'd go from here, because he knew that Pete would never just let this sit - he'd get it out of him, and then they'd fall apart at the consequences.

And of course silence ensued and the self-conscious part of Patrick thought that perhaps Pete hadn't even been listening, that Pete hadn't heard him at all, but of course, the truth was vastly different.

And the door opened, revealing Pete - red face clad with tears and his fringe falling messily across his face like he'd been pulling at it. "What?" Came his response - not in a questioning or demanding manner, but a shocked one, like the thought that Patrick would let anyone break his heart hadn't even crossed Pete's mind.

"I know what it's like to love someone who doesn't love you back." Patrick finished, his voice, for once, steady, and most because he spoke as his eyes locked with Pete's, watching for his best friend's reaction with an open mind, ready to be completely cut out of this friendship if things went sour, because god, Pete wouldn't stand for this - he'd surely think it weird; we'd been friends for years now and sometimes he told me that I was more so his brother than his friend.

"Tell me who the fuck this bitch is so I can slap her across her fucking whore face." Pete exclaimed at once, and Patrick couldn't help but chuckle at his response, but for what reason he hadn't a clue, perhaps it was the fact that his best friend though that the subject here was female. That was just funny.

"Him." Patrick found the word tumble from his lips without a word of warning, much like before, leaving him to the rather sincere conclusion that he was pretty much screwed here. "That's a funny way to come out, I guess, but Pete, it's a him."

"I'll fucking kick him in the balls then." Pete laughed it off, but Patrick started crying, because Patrick knew who he loved, and he could see just how fucking selfless Pete was, how he would do anything for the people he cared about and how far too many people barely even seemed to notice.

And it broke Patrick's heart more than the fact that Pete would never notice him like he noticed Mikey.

"Pete.." Patrick just let his voice slip audacity as he stepped forward into Pete's now open bedroom, his eyes falling upon the scene before him, and wondering how the hell either of them could carry on from here. "That's your blood. Isn't it?" He finally addresses the situation and the dark red stains on the sheets and their horrifically obvious cause.

"Pat-... Patrick, I... I..." And Pete started crying again, tugging on Patrick's arm in a half-hearted attempt to get him out of the room, and perhaps lead them into a situation where the blood stains were never mentioned again. "Please, just... just go... just forget... I-"

"Pete." Patrick snapped at his best friend, or perhaps anyone, for the first time, his eyes meeting sternly with Pete's. "No, like heck I'm going to just forget about this! Come on," he gestured inside, grabbing Pete's hand, only for him to flinch away at the touch, leaving Patrick to release a knowing sigh, conveying a thousand words he daren't speak aloud, "please, Pete, let's just talk about this, please. You don't deserve to do this to yourself."

"You have no idea, Patrick, you just, just no... no, no." He finished, meeting Patrick's eyes and pushing his friend back a little - something he thought he'd never and of course would never want to do, but things never work out the way we want them to. "Just go, please... you don't understand, and you can't understand."

"I can-" Patrick protested, pushing against Pete, determined upon getting something out of him, because if he knew something for certain it was that he wasn't leaving Pete alone like this at all. "And whatever you say, Pete... I... I'm not leaving you alone like this, because... because you can't do this to yourself... it's you that doesn't understand-... how... how... perfect... y-you are-"

"Bullshit." Pete snapped in Patrick's face, frightening his friend, who despite the mean intent behind the gesture, still couldn't find it in himself to blame him - Pete was going through a lot right now, and really being in love with him gave Patrick such a terrible bias.

"It's not, Pete, it's... it's not..." Patrick finally managed to draw out, holding his breath as he contemplated providing the reason why, and then logic took over, reminding him just how easily that could ruin both his life and their friendship, and anyway, of course Pete couldn't deal with that today - he'd been through too much already. That satisfied Patrick's conscience at the very least.

"It's not... what? Not true? Oh, believe me, I already know-" He began to proclaim; his words thrown about everywhere, and he just wasn't listening to the screaming inside Patrick at all.

"You don't! You goddamn don't, Pete. You don't know what you're doing here and you don't know what's going through my head right now, and you just know what mess is going on through your own-"

"I barely even know what's going through my own head these days." His words took the place of Patrick's; his tone quiet and perhaps just a little scared, but not quite scared just anxious regarding the reaction he'd receive. "It's just mess, it's just madness... my emotions are like quick sand and I'm sinking deeper and deeper by the day."

"And I'm always going to be there to pull you back up and out again - I promise you that, Pete." 

And if there was one thing that anybody knew, it was that Patrick kept his promises.

-

"Did I ever mention just how I absolutely can't believe that this is happening - that we're going on an actual date?" Mikey exclaimed in a voice akin to an overly excited, female, sixth grader, causing Alicia to roll her eyes in response, an amused smile skimming her lips.

"If you want there to be another one, then I suggest you tone down the fangirl behaviour - start acting like you're my boyfriend and maybe you'll be just that." She passed a casually flirtatious comment in his direction as they began on the walk to Alicia's house, which as they discovered was at least twice the distance Mikey's was away from school, however aforementioned casually flirtatious comment, seemed to have absolutely killed Mikey in the process, his pace slowly and his eyes imitating the ones of a rabies victim.

"Yeah..." Mikey exhaled audibly, picking up pace and grinning at Alicia like she just hadn't prompted him on the whole boyfriend behaviour, "you're my date." He smiled to himself like a lovestruck idiot once more before sliding his hand into Alicia's, who couldn't help but giggle at the cheesiness of the gesture, before squeezing her hand back into Mikey's in return.

Mikey seriously could not fucking believe that was happening at all - if you'd have told him this morning that this would have been happening today then he probably would have passed out on the spot, so honestly it was probably for the best that no one had done so.

"You're cheesy as fuck, though. Who do you think you are? Brad fucking Pitt?" She burst into a fit of laughter at Mikey's 'oh fuck god what have I done?' face, giving his hand a squeeze in the reassurance that everything was fine and that she was only joking, for the moment at the very least.

"You're hardly Angelina Jolie, though are you?" Mikey added, biting his lip, praying to every God he knew the name of that he hadn't somehow miraculously offended her, because really if there was one word to describe how Mikey was with girls, it would have to be nothing other than absolutely clueless, or perhaps pathetic.

"Yeah, my face doesn't resemble a duck - I reckon that's a positive." And Mikey was thrown into a fit of laughter at that point, Alicia simply wearing a smug expression like it was nothing.

"You have a very nice face." Mikey told her with his best complimenting skills, of course.

"And a very nice ass, as you've already told me." She added, let a smirk twist over her vaguely innocent smile as Mikey descended deep into a horribly vibrant blush at the very notion.

"Well... it is..." Mikey stumbled over his words, Alicia simply rolling her eyes and leading him into a house which he presumed to be hers, as he hoped that Alicia's idea of a date wasn't a house robbery, not that he'd mind all that much - he'd probably shovel shit on a farm if it just meant spending time with Alicia, which was of course terribly creepy, but simultaneously terribly characteristic of Mikey Way.

"My sister's downstairs - just don't bother talking to her, she's a bitch, and we're going straight upstairs - stay in my room all the time, unless you want her to interrogate you like you're in a prisoner of war, because believe me, it will happen." Alicia met his eyes with sincerity at that, leaving Mikey to wonder whether the hell this was another a joke or whether he should be seriously scared - a query to which he went without an answer.

"Oh, it's fine... I get the whole protective thing with my parents. How old is she?"

"Six." Alicia added with a pure fucking grin, breaking out into laughter lines.

"Oh."

-

"Wow... you actually like... wow... Metallica... Ray bet me you wouldn't as well... wow... you're fucking awesome." Mikey exclaimed, stood in the middle of Alicia's bedroom, staring, for once not at her ass, but at the posters that her walls were covered in.

"What? Just because I'm on the netball team, huh?" She asked, one eyebrow cocked up as she sat down on her bed, patting the space next to her in gesture for Mikey to join her, who really didn't look like he was going accomplish moving anytime soon because Alicia had just asked him to bed with her, well... to sit on it, but in Mikey's mind this was beyond wonderful.

"Mainly because you're like the most popular girl in our year and this is Catholic school." Mikey admitted with a blush, as he finally managed to sit down beside her, of course then she decided to link their hands, sending Mikey into state where he was pretty sure these weren't butterflies in his stomach but fucking earthquakes.

"What do you think this? A fucking high school movie, grow up." She rolled her eyes, chuckling a little as she threw her head back against the bed, leaving Mikey sat there in awkward state of uncertainty regarding whether he ought to mimic her actions or not.

"I just... I wasn't aware girls liked Metallica. I mean, Frank's got a girlfriend and she likes music like that, but it's well... Frank." Mikey just fell into a constant state of blush as he continued to talk.

"Frank's got a girlfriend?" Alicia exclaimed, snorting at that, catching Mikey's confused expression and sending him a smirk in response. "Don't you think... he's a bit... uhm... gay?" Her words having an effect she could never quite imagine on the teenage boy sat awkwardly on her bed besides her wondering just what he'd done for God to grant him this.

"I.... I.... Frank's not a fag...." Mikey finally managed to push out, his eyes almost popping from their sockets as he met Alicia's inquisitive gaze; who didn't feel strongly either way of the 'gay debate', accepting both homosexuality and homophobia's existence, taking them both at face value as they seemed not to concern her all that much.

"Hmm... if you say so. He does wear really tight jeans though, and he hangs around with Jamia - a lesbian, and he sits next to Pete in math." Alicia continued, pointing each ridiculous suggestion out on her fingers, leaving Mikey ending up fixating upon her fingers and not her words.

"It’s not like anyone would willing sit next to Pete though, and as I've said he's got a girlfriend... her name's Georgia." Mikey didn't quite know why he was almost standing up for Frank like this, and perhaps he reckoned he was more standing up for his complacency in savouring his safe little bubble of heteronormality - little did he know just how close that bubble was to popping.

"Georgia..." Alicia ran the name through her head as she tried to put a face to the name she'd been presented with. "I don't know any 'Georgia's-"

"She goes to a different school." Mikey finished, smiling up at his date in a rather dumb fashion as she connected her biased evidence together with the well known 'different school' bullshit story, concocting a biased yet, for once true, theory as to Frank's questionable sexuality.

"Different school, of course." Alicia grinned to herself, choosing not to point this out to Mikey, letting his best friend take it up the ass, or whatever he liked. She didn't care all that much, and Mikey would find out eventually, of course.

"I kind of feel sorry for Ray though, because now me and Frank aren't single, he's going to feel kind of left out, y'know?" Mikey burst out, utterly forgetting that nothing was entirely official between him and Alicia yet, causing a smirk to break her lips as Mikey fell into a terrible blush.

"Who ever said you weren't single, Mikey Way?" She asked, smirking up at him as she sat back up, facing the panicking boy on her bed - she reckoned it was kind of empowering, but more amusing than anything else, and perhaps since it was Mikey, it was just a little cute.

"Shit... I... I'm sorry... I..." Mikey stumbled in his words as Alicia simply sat there grinning her head off, before she grabbed his hands, his eyes practically bulging enough to fall from their sockets at that moment.

"I would love to ensure that you weren't single, Mikey Way," she paused on purpose, letting his heart beat so fast he was practically sick all over her and her bed, which thankfully didn't happen, as the one thing Mikey knew about girls was that they didn't like being thrown up on, and unfortunately, this was from experience. "But I wouldn't want to upset Ray, would I?"

And the smirk that followed her words was nothing short of legendary.

"Fuck Ray." Mikey snapped out, rolling his eyes in an almost tantrum like manner, extracting a giggle from Alicia's lips.

"Wasn't sure that something like that would be your intentions." And dear god did Alicia regret one thing she said - not at all. Not at fucking all.

Mikey, however, was stunned into silence.

"What? Do you think I'm gay too?" He asked, his tone slightly aggressive, as it was made perfectly clear that comments like these didn't work the best on people as blinded by homophobia as Mikey.

"If I thought you were gay, do you really think I would invite you on a date with me?" She countered, raising a particularly good point that stopped Mikey mid-thought. "I was just joking. The whole gay thing a touchy subject with you, or what?"

"No, uh, no... It’s just... wrong." Mikey finally managed to push out, eyeing Alicia nervously, unsure as to what her response could possibly, because anyone he cared about the opinion of had never cared the slightest about homosexuality past homophobia before.

"God also said not to have sex before marriage as well, and it's your opinion, but if you're going to follow one thing the bible says then you might as well follow everything." Alicia all too casually and completely unintentionally, messed up Mikey Way's head to the point he actually began to question his views on homophobia, which was a serious change.

"Do you spend all your dates discussing the bible?" Mikey asked with a smile, slowly regaining his sanity and confidence in what he believed, or whatever he could get back of it now.

"Only the ones with Catholic boys." She let a smirk slide onto her lips. "When I date stoners we usually spend the time getting high, and when I date whores we have sex. And really that just about covers it."

"You've had sex." Mikey let out in a dazed voice, the blood going down to his dick as he began imagining it, which was really nothing but a terribly stupid idea, especially in presence of Alicia herself.

"Haven't you?" And there came the blush, because no, Mikey had not.

"No... I-"

"That's something we'll have to work on." Mikey's eyes lit up at that, almost as if someone turned his pupils into fucking strobe lights. "But you're not quite enough of an asshole to fuck me on the first date, Mikey Way. Come back tomorrow, perhaps - we'll see."

And if Mikey came out of Alicia's house with one piece of knowledge, it was that Alicia Simmons was a fucking bitch, and honestly, he'd never been so in love with her for it. 

-

The fact that Pete walked through the doors of school that morning had surprised Patrick incredibly, causing him to stop at his locker and turn to stare at his best friend practically strut into school as if he owned the whole fucking place, only for Patrick's eyes widen as he pushed through a few people, getting a better view of his best friend and putting a name to the face beside him - Gabe Saporta. And oh dear god they were holding hands.

Patrick stomach plummeted instantly, at first at the fact that even if it wasn't Mikey Way, Pete had found someone else, and that Pete still thought the person Patrick loved and didn't love him back needed kicking in the balls, and even now Patrick didn't, and just couldn't agree. But the longer he looked, he pieced it all together, knowing Pete and knowing that this was just an idiotic ditch to get back at Mikey, even when the boy hadn't done anything but acquire a girlfriend, which in Mikey's head was most certainly not a bother to Pete, but Mikey didn't know Pete like Patrick did - that was something he couldn't deny.

And Patrick couldn't help but wish Pete could have fake dated him to get back at Mikey. Why did it have to be Gabe fucking Saporta? Popular, funny, and fucking handsome, Gabe Saporta, who for someone godforsaken reason was prepared to take all the bullying he'd get for this, being Pete Wentz's boyfriend, even if it was only fake, and even if it was only for a day - why he'd fuck up his whole reputation for some stupid drunken idea Pete had conjured up, Patrick hadn't a clue.

"Pete-" Patrick began to call out his best friend's name, pushing through the small crowd that had gathered around what appeared to be the new 'celebrity' couple of the school, most people gawping at the fact that Gape Saporta was not only associating with Pete Wentz, but in an awfully homosexual manner too. Pete however felt the need to be oblivious towards that fact, smiling and waving as they walked through the halls as if he was the fucking queen or something, generally lapping up all the attention he could get in a typically Pete esque manner.

"Pete fucking Wentz." Came the response Pete had been searching for in the form of an extremely pissed off Mikey Way, Alicia joining him by his side, looking on at the scene with nothing more than raised eyebrows, which brought quite the contrast to Pete's untameable fury. "You've spread it to him too, haven't you? Fucking made him gay, huh? Was it fun fucking his ass? Well fuck you, I'm so fucking done with you - you're a fucking disease... nobody wants you here!"

Patrick’s, "I want him here," was lost amongst the yelling as Mikey pushed through the crowd, leaving Alicia to make her way to the side-lines with some other girl on the netball team that wasn't quite important enough on the social ladder for her name to be well known.

"What an asshole you are, Wentz." Gabe stepped forward, letting go of Pete's hand and stepping forward so him and Mikey Way were eye to eye; Gabe considerably taller and more muscular than Mikey, intimidating just about everyone with the stone cold gaze he hadn't out like flyers nobody wanted but felt morally compared to hold onto just until they were out of sight of the person who'd handed them the flyers.

"You know I've always been gay, and you know the fact that Pete had the guts to stand up and say this to you of all people is extraordinary, and you know what, I have the guts now too. I like guys, but don't worry that I'm going to come after you, Mikey Way, I'm already rather preoccupied with my boyfriend here." He glanced back to Pete at that moment, the two of them sharing a knowing smile, almost as if they'd scripted this, but smiles and the emotions were all too real.

"Boyfriend?" Mikey practically choked out, his eyes widening as he had trouble processing the information he found himself presented with, Pete savouring his reaction like it was something he needed more than oxygen.

"You got a problem?" Came Gabe's response all fiery wild eyes full of rage and a step closer to Mikey Way, causing Alicia to push through the crowd with the intentions of ensuring that her not quite boyfriend didn't end up with a black eye or several broken ribs.

"Come on, Mikey." She grabbed him by the hand, pulling him away from Pete and Gabe, and reluctantly back through the crowd that had gathered in stunned silence, perhaps mainly just in search of a fight to brighten up the time before math class or something. "Fucking move, you assholes, what are you looking at, huh?" Alicia screamed as she pulled Mikey's scowling body through the crowds and back down the nearest corridor, the crowds diminishing with them and leaving Patrick stood in the same spot his eyes finally meeting with Pete's; Gabe still glaring just a little violently in the direction Mikey had left in.

"What are you doing, Pete?" Was all Patrick could say as his best friend approached him. "I know you seem happy and perhaps Mikey deserves this, or perhaps he doesn’t, but in the long run this is really stupid idea... you and Gabe aren't for real... it's just to get back at Mikey, and that's just not healthy-"

"Fuck you if you say I don't love him." Came Pete's harsh and rather unexpected and terribly unaccounted for response. "I thought you'd understand what I did, and thought you'd accept me and want and who I want to love, but you know what, Patrick, you're just as bad as the rest of them, aren't you?"

"Pete-" Patrick began to exclaim, his eyes falling wide open in a shock he'd never felt before, his heart desperately feeling the need to pound in his chest, but he felt nothing at all instead. Just emptiness, nothing.

"Just fucking go. I don't want to see you ever again, Patrick."

And perhaps then did Patrick really know what it felt like to be Pete, what it felt like to have the one you love hate you unconditionally, and just how it ate away at you until your breathing stopped and your veins ran dry; devoid of blood, having bleed it all out long ago, and all for him.

-

Perhaps this was just about the worst day Frank could have arrived late to school for, as apparently, by the shower of information he was hit with by a wide eyed Ryan Ross, whom he met outside English as he arrived at school just before lunch break, only having woken up half an hour prior, and most definitely hadn't stayed up to ridiculous 'o' clock in the morning texting his stupid fucking boyfriend.

"Frank, you seriously will not believe what's happened today. It's literally been just about the most eventful day in school history, it's like World War Three or something... more of World War Pete, though-" Frank didn't let him finish, guessing the end of his sentence easily, as if it had something to do with Pete Wentz, it was usually his fault.

"So let me guess, Pete Wentz did something incredibly stupid and that's set off some kind of school wide war whilst I was sleeping through half the day?" He asked in a casual tone, knowing before Ryan nodded in response that he was right.

"Pete started dated Gabe Saporta basically-" Ryan began to exclaim as the two of them made their way through the corridors to the back of the school where Ryan and Brendon usually hung out with a few others guys that Frank couldn't name. He wondered if he could sneak a quick smoke in with Jamia before he exposed himself to Mikey's most likely incredibly strongly homophobic views regarding what had he'd missed this morning.

"What?" Frank exclaimed, not knowing whether to be more shocked at the fact that Gabe Saporta was gay, or the fact that anyone would willingly agree to date Pete Wentz. Perhaps the latter - he'd heard rumours in like middle school, not they were trustworthy by any means, but whatever, it was middle school.

"Yeah, you heard right, and the two of them walked into school this morning holding hands. I didn't see that first bit; I only came in when there was a massive crowd and Gabe was threatening to beat Mikey up or something. Brendon was there though, and a few people were staring at the two of them holding hands, and then Mikey and Alicia came down the corridor and she tried to stop him freaking out but it's Mikey so he didn't listen and pretty much screamed his head off at the two of them, Pete stood there basically trying not to laugh as Gabe practically scared Mikey shitless and then Alicia dragged him off before he got kicked in the balls. Apparently he was a massive dick to Patrick afterwards, as well - I don't know why but the kid just came up to Brendon earlier and was with him all day, looking rather sad and saying something about Pete."

"Oh Jesus Christ when you say I've missed the beginning of a war you weren't really joking at all, were you?" Frank let out a sigh as the walked through the doors, cool air hitting their faces, and Mikey jumping up from the bench he was sat at, just at the sight of Frank alive and unaware of just how pissed off he was with Pete Wentz, but Frank would argue that really his face said it all.

"No, I wasn't." Ryan added as he let out in involuntary wary look in Mikey's direction as he approached Frank. "I'll leave you to deal with him - good luck." Frank could only pass him pleading looks as he walked over to the corner where Brendon and Patrick were sat, the latter of the two with his knees pulling up to his chest and his fringe and fedora covering any emotion that his face could have held.

"Frank, oh my fucking god, you will not believe what fucking Pete's done now!" Mikey exclaimed, grabbing his friend by the arm and dragging him over to where Mikey and Ray had been sat, Ray passing Frank an apologetic glance as Mikey forced him to sit down.

"I've heard from Ryan, it's alright." Frank began, knowing Mikey wouldn't find that an acceptable enough reason to let Frank off from his 'reasons why I hate Pete Wentz rant' of the day, at least he wasn't bitching about his brother who Frank definitely wasn't fucking behind his back, at least, Frank thought.

"No, but you don't understand - he's turned Gabe into one of them..."

"What? A vampire?" Ray piped up, clearly tired of Mikey's speech already, and from Frank's absence, he guessed Ray had been forced into experiencing this at least five times by now, and seriously he owed Ray for that big time.

"No," Mikey continued, his tone scarily serious, "a homosexual."

"Mikey, homosexuality doesn't work like vampirism-" Frank began in an explanation he knew Mikey just wouldn't accept no matter what evidence he provided him with, perhaps even the fact that Mikey had spent everyday the past few years with him and he was still perfectly straight, but he doubted just how well that would go down, considering what Mikey'd experienced with Pete this morning already for him.

Frank began to reckon that homosexuality was a traumatising experience for Mikey, and he did quite literally bring the phobia into homophobia.

"No, Frank, have you seen just how gay Gabe is now-" Thankfully, Mikey never got to finish what Frank reckoned could just about be the stupidest sentence to ever leave his lips.

"Frank, we need to talk." He turned up to glance at Jamia, who stood behind him, her phone in her hand as she furiously bit down on her bottom lip.

"He's busy-"

"It's about Gee, c'mon." Jamia gave as an explanation, leaving Frank to deal with the aftermath of who 'Gee' was, and wonder whether Mikey would connect it to 'Georgia' or 'Gerard' first - that'd be interesting, surely.

"Yeah, sorry, Mikey - it's important." Frank answered in the tone he thought totally didn't give away the fact that he was fucking Mikey's brother the best.

Its efficiency however would have to be tested with time and against the whole 'Gee' situation, Jamia had nearly ruined Frank's life with.

Then again, a day in the life of Jamia Nestor, huh?

-


	11. Jesus Christ - Our Lord, Saviour, And Condom Hider

He couldn't see, his eyes covered and he could hear nothing over the ragged breaths he struggled to take, wishing he couldn't feel at all, but it wasn't like that - it could never be just as easy as that, and he hated how it seemed like his fault and he hated that it was all he told him, and he hated that this was even happening at all.

It felt like a dream, but really more of a nightmare - the reality of the situation was certainly questionable nonetheless, but nothing tugged at his heartstrings and every nerve in his body as how much it hurt - that was real and he was horribly sure of that.

He wanted to cry, and he felt as if he couldn't stop himself, but nothing ever came as a result, finding his eyes dry despite the tears ready and waiting to unleash themselves at any moment, he just felt empty and devoid of anything but a certain kind of nothingness that seemed to haunt him for forever and he begged for nothing more than for this to stop, but he hadn't the energy or the care to do so anymore, perhaps he'd just about accepted the inevitability of the situation.

That would perhaps have been logical in any other situation, but nothing could be at all logical when his head was thrown into nothingness as his senses numbed and tears couldn't even choke their way out - he just wanted it to stop, he just needed it to stop, he just couldn't take it-

But, he had to - his voice didn't work, it didn't work anymore and for a reason unknown to him he found himself in a position where he simply couldn't make a sound, leaving him there, motionless and used, praying for it to be over soon. But God never took pity on people such as him - his mother had told him that a thousand times by now, but never had he thought it to be as true as it really turned out to be.

Maybe this was the punishment he always deserved and maybe this was what was coming for him, and even as it slowed and he regained a little of sense, he couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps this had always been his fault, after all.

And he still couldn't cry, even as it felt as if it would never end and even as he almost passed out, and even as he swore he was dying right there, choking on the cruelty of the world around him - he thought it would never end at all.

But it did.

Thank everything it did, but damn everything as to how it did, because it ended in his loss and triumph of him, and he felt like he couldn't breathe all over again.

Because it all ended as he screamed out his name-

-

"Gerard!" Lindsey's voice raised above the nervous rambling of the twenty five year old, haven taken over her kitchen and biscuit tin with his tears and worries choked out at a tone inaudible.

They'd been like this for forty minutes now - Gee a quivering, shaking, sobbing mess, using up all her tissues as he tried his best not to draw to attention to the fact that he was physically rocking back and forth against the wall, not showing any signs of care when his head hit the wall with a wince worthy thud.

By now, from the fact that Lindsey had spent all of this time trying to talk to him, hug him, comfort him, give him chocolate and put on a corny zombie movie, in any attempt to bring him back into any form of a rational state, but all of her attempts were left ignored, and in Gee's eyes, pointless.

And since stubborn was practically Lindsey Ballato's middle name, giving up was simply not on her agenda, even after forty minutes of ignored comforts and hugs he'd moved away from, she had to take the fact simply, that she just wasn't going to get through to him, not like this, and clearly whatever had brought him here in a state such as this, was clearly something to be reckoned with, and if it be a someone, it would be a someone Lindsey would ensure never made it out of this alive.

She was stubborn, not stupid.

And she certainly proved the last part, with the fact that she knew if she couldn't get through to him, there was a very good chance she knew someone that could.

And that was how Lindsey found herself texting Jamia in school hours, mentioning only words such as 'important', 'emergency', 'Frank', and 'Gee', ignoring what they discussed last night regarding the fact that Jamia should really be focusing on school more and skipping less.

Gee just changed things, and this appeared to apply to everyone who knew him, because despite what the sobbing man rocking himself back and forth into insanity on her countertop, told himself, he was important, and very fucking much so.

"Gerard, please..." Lindsey let out of a sigh of frustration, of course not for Gee, but for whatever, however had reduced him to this and the broken leg they were going to get for this - a reminder of the fact that they dare not think they could hurt Gee Way without consequence.

"I know by now you're not going to respond, but I hope you can hear me, I think you can, and I just want to say, it's going to be alright... look I promise, I promise you, whoever did something to you, whatever they did, they deserve a lovely broken limb in my opinion, and trust me, Gee, that's something I can arrange." Lindsey did what she thought would comfort her friend, but her words had an effect that was everything that she didn't expect.

For once, Gee looked up in the first acknowledgement of her presence in the past three quarters of an hour now.

"Don't do anything, Lindsey... please... I- I'm overreacting, this is nothing... I'll just f-fuck... things up if... if this c-continues." And the second being Gee's response, his words barely audible and distinguishable from one another, coming out more as one big quiet sob stuck in the back of his throat and tumbling out of their own accord.

"Gee, don't, don't say that, just... you don't even have to explain right now, just, you're beyond upset, so don't even try to tell me that you're okay, though. You can explain in your own time, and you can stay here as long as you want, okay?" Lindsey went to give him a hug, pressing the crying twenty five year old against her, but he shook his head, moving away once more, leaving Lindsey not disappointed, but upset, not for herself, but for Gee, and whatever the hell had happened.

She swore if it was his fucking family again then she was going to kill them in their sleep or something, because if there were a dictionary definition of 'family of unaccepting, abusive, dickcunts' it would the Ways. Who the hell kicks their son out of their house and their lives just because of who he's attracted to?

"I... just... I need to be alone... can you just let me be pathetic and cry for a bit...? I- I..." Gee shook his head as he spoke, almost embarrassed to be in a position such as this, certain that he was bringing nothing but inconvenience to Lindsey, who'd been kind enough to let him inside in such a state with minimal questioning. She didn't deserve to have to deal with him like this.

"Gee, honestly, I know you're not going to agree with me, but look at yourself, the last thing you need right now is to be left alone, look even your head knows that, because you came here, you came to see me for a reason." And Lindsey was right, and Gee knew she was right, but still too distraught and perhaps just a little too stubborn to consider admitting it, perhaps mainly for outcome of it.

"I came here to get away from where I was, because I couldn't be there, and I needed to run, and I can't go back, but I have to, and I fucking have to, and-and... I-I... don't..." His words trailed off into a mess of sobbing and badly annunciated whimpers, eventually leading out into muffled nothingness at the realisation of just how pathetic and stupid he was being.

"You don't have to do anything, Gee." Lindsey finally said into the almost silence, finding herself lost for words as Gee's echoed around her head.

"But I do, and you don't... you don't... get this... you d-don't understand and no one does, I-I... don't... I just... go, please- no, I'll go... I-I... just-" His words continued down a slippery slope of fragmentation until he could barely get a point across, his voice dragging out into sobs that choked and killed off the meaning of his words until he was left with nothing.

"Gee, you're staying right here, and you're going to calm down, and everything is going to be alright, okay?" Her tone was firm, yet kind, almost maternal, and really, Gee would have killed to have Lindsey as his mother instead, but for once, it wasn't his parents that had reduced him to such a state.

The twenty five year old only shook his head.

"Just leave me alone, let me be pathetic, if you're not going to let me leave."

"Frank's already coming over, Gee. You can't hide away from people like this." Gee's eyes widened at that, a million alarms going off in his head at Frank's name.

"No, no... no he can't, he can't see me like this..-- I..."

And then came footsteps, and a key turning in the lock.

Jamia always carried her spare key.

And for once Lindsey found it useless, instead of affectionately creepy.

Gee, however, really did not.

-

"Gee..." The word tumbled from Frank's lips like a landslide and the rocks caused nothing but heartbreak and catastrophe in the form of the pounding in the seventeen year old's chest as he locked eyes with his boyfriend; curled up and crying, his eyes blood shot and the look in them snapping Frank in two.

"I... I... Frank, please... I... go you don't need to see me like this." His voice came out quiet, barely a whisper, but in the silence that had fallen over Lindsey's small kitchen, it felt like he was screaming it from the top of his lungs.

"I'm most certainly not going to leave you like this, Gee, don't be stupid." Frank shook his head, stepping towards his boyfriend and looking to pull him against his chest in some generic attempt at comforting him and ceasing his sobs, but if Lindsey had to specially call him in, he really should have guessed by now that something like a hug wouldn't be all it took.

Frank did not however expect Gee to shuffle away at that point, almost scared to touch him, shaking his head violently before burying it between his knees, hiding his tears but by no means muffling his sobs.

"I can't get through to him at all." Lindsey offered as all the other explanation Frank could possibly require. "We'll leave you alone, okay?" Jamia joined her as they headed for the door, Lindsey passing Frank a smile that by the falter and sad glimpse in her eyes could only convey a good luck message, leaving Frank to exhale a sigh and glance at his boyfriend and contemplate just how much he would need it.

"Gee." Let out another sigh as the door clicked closed behind them, leaving Gee curled up on Lindsey's kitchen counter, still sobbing, and Frank stood half a metre away from him, utterly lost at what to do. 

And as he received no response, other than perhaps an increase in volume of the not quite so muffled sobs his boyfriend was emitting, Frank jumped up onto the counter sitting down beside Gee, who much to his surprise and utter relief made no instant attempt to shuffle away from Frank.

"Just tell me what's wrong, Gee. You can tell me anything, I promise. Trust me." Frank's words were fragmented as they left his lips; almost sentences of there own, dragging his heart down with the continuous silence between them.

"I don't want.. w-want to make t-things... worse..." Gee finally choked out in response, peeling his gaze up to meet Frank's, his eyes telling a story that left Frank wonder if he was at all scared of his seventeen year old boyfriend sat beside him right now, which brought said seventeen year old boyfriend to states of unimaginable perplexion - nothing quite added up here, and Gee was really doing nothing to rectify the matter.

"The only thing that's making things worse is you refusing to tell anyone and upsetting yourself and everyone else because they can't stop you crying." Frank paused, then his eyes pulling away, fixing on the tatty, ripped wallpaper on the wall opposite. "It hurts to see you cry, Gee. It hurts me."

"Then don't look."

He responded almost like a small child, thinking things were just that simple, and Frank almost felt compelled to let out some form of dry laughter, but he reckoned that was the last thing Gee needed right now, especially when he was in a state such as this.

"Gee, please, just tell me, I don't care what it is, I just care that you're upset." Frank let out a sigh as he watched the twenty five year old rub the tears from his eyes, turning to face him, almost in slow motion, or maybe that was just Frank's head messing with him there.

"Bert." The name came first and Frank found himself already angry, knowing that if he was involved in the state Gee had been reduced to then he really need teaching a fucking lesson, except perhaps by somebody else because Frank was still a seventeen year old, five foot, Catholic school student.

"He was drunk I think, I mean he's usually drunk to an extent, but he was.. he... was wasted a-and..." Gee shook his head, biting his lip and throwing his head back against the wall so that it hurt. 

As Frank began to open his mouth, Gee simply shook his head again. 

"I-I... can't."

"Gee, please, just tell me what he did, please..." Frank let out a sigh, his eyes drifting to floor and he contemplated whether he really wanted to know or not anymore.

"He kissed me and I didn't want him to and I... I told him to stop, but no... he... he... he.... he didn't stop... he never stopped... he was drunk... and I... I... I-I'm sorry... I, h-he didn't stop, I-" Frank just couldn't listen to this anymore, having pieced together exactly what had happened and far more than he ever wished to know in his head.

"It's not your fault." Frank exclaimed, his voice stern, yet his gaze never quite meeting Gee's.

"I... I... I'm sorry... I let him... I-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Frank shouted, Gee jerking back at that, leaving the seventeen year old to let out a sigh as he came to realise his mistake. "I'm sorry, I... I didn't mean to shout. It's not your fault, believe me, Gee."

"He told me it was."

"He was drunk, he didn't mean it." Frank found himself coming out with the worst thing he probably could have said right now, but the only way he could convince Gee to stop crying and perhaps even open up to Lindsey and Jamia, one of which would be sure to make sure Bert stayed away from his boyfriend.

"So I should forgive him for what he did to me-"

"God, no." Frank shook his head excessively at that. "That's different - don't ever fucking forgive him." And Frank felt so weird talking to his twenty five year old boyfriend like he was just a little kid.

"Then what do I do?" He piped out, his voice quite, as if he was still scared of what he'd said.

"Tell Lindsey, trust her to deal with this appropriately."

"But he said-"

"Fuck what he said, what he said doesn't matter when he's done something like this to you."

-

"Gabe..." Pete's tone was muffled against the pillow he was facedown against, the other boy's name released from his lips in the form of a moan, which Gabe was thankful his Catholic parents weren't home to hear, and as Gabe pushed in again, another moan of similar quality is released from Pete's lips, his jaw hanging open, forcing him to turn his head to the side if he didn't want to get a mouthful of pillowcase.

"Ah fuck, I'm there... so close... so nearly fucking there... ah..." Gabe let the words trail from his lips as he slammed harder into Pete, his body overcome by the need running through his veins, and Pete asking him to be gentle doesn't seem to matter at all anymore.

Gabe came before Pete did, into the condom that they've paid enough attention to the extensively awkward Sex Ed class to use; the Sex Ed class that they had once like four years ago, that explained what things were in vague detail and was then followed by the no, no, no, don't have sex you will get pregnant and die talk that ran on into break time, because of course, you know, they went to Catholic school.

At least they could sleep easy with the basic knowledge that Pete could in fact not get pregnant, as unfortunately, Pete Wentz did not have a uterus - Sex Ed had taught them that at the very least.

"Pete... fuck...." Gabe moaned out as he came, falling down against Pete as he revelled in orgasm, currently unable to move, let alone pull out and dispose of a condom in house governed almost pictorially by Catholic parents, at least Gabe had thought to remove the painting of Jesus on the shelf before he started fucking his boyfriend.

Pete came as Gabe collapsed into him, moments after his boyfriend, panting against the pillow that muffled the strained groan out of a word that may have vaguely resembled 'fuck', Pete didn't know or care all that much.

"Was that good?" Gabe asked, slowly pulling himself out of his boyfriend, nodding in response, who then winced at the sudden gesture, sighing as Gabe was fully out and had crawled off the bed, tying up the condom and holding it up by a ginger pinch of two fingers as he stood stark naked in the middle of his bedroom, almost glaring the object he held so cautiously as if it may explode at any moment, splattering its contents everywhere, which they of course had to avoid as Gabe wasn't all that keen on Pete getting pregnant of course then instantaneously dying in consequence.

"What are you doing?" Pete asked, a chuckle gracing his lips as he pulled the covers around him, feeling self-conscious despite the fact that he'd just had sex with Gabe, in a typically teenage manner.

"Where the hell am I supposed to put this so that it isn't found? I've heard horror stories about flushing them down the toilet as well? Can you take it?" He asked, almost holding out the thing to Pete, who was opposed to touching it entirely, despite the fact he'd had it in his ass mere minutes ago.

"Fuck no, dude." Pete shook his head, laughing a little as a ridiculous idea came to his mind. "Hide it behind the Jesus photo."

"What?"

"The last place your parents are going to look for a condom is behind Jesus Christ our lord and saviour." Pete pointed out in a rather sarcastic tone, Gabe rolling his eyes as he grabbed a half empty packet of Doritos and shoving the condom inside, scrunching the thing up and throwing it in the trashcan in the illusion that it was innocently empty and not hiding his come.

"That better work because I sacrificed like half a packet of Doritos for that." Gabe rolled his eyes, pulling on his boxers and jeans from where they lay on the floor, not too sure where his shirt was and not too bothered that he was shirtless. "You should probably put some clothes on because if my parents come home early then they're going to question why there's a naked man in my bed more than if I just invited a 'friend' over."

Pete shrugged in response, obliging for Gabe's sake more than anything. "I just lost it to you, and I don't feel physically different, I don't know... I..."

"Did you expect it to?" Gabe asked, joining Pete with now significantly more clothes on, on his bed.

Pete shrugged once again, trying his best not to imagine what it would have been like to have done this with Mikey and focus on the fact that he had a cute boyfriend that loved him for who he was and he didn't have to get upset over chasing after a cute guy that's homophobic as hell and hates his guts.

"That was my first time with a guy, and it didn't feel miraculous - it's not a magic spell, I reckon its not supposed to, but I enjoyed it, I enjoyed fucking you, I want to do it again - I guess that's what matters. I think the your first time should feel special is part of that waiting until after marriage bullshit." Gabe added as explanation, reaching for Pete's hand as the two of them shared a smile.

"Yeah, I just... it's nerves, I guess..." Pete let out a sigh, his heart sinking because it wasn't nerves, it was Mikey Way, and as much as he liked Gabe and felt that he was perfect, he just couldn't settle the feeling that he was with him for all the wrong reasons.

-

Ryan, Brendon, and Patrick sat outside the school cafeteria on a Wednesday morning, continuously dreading the bell that ring in signification of the start of the school day. Patrick having befriended the two of them in the absence and douchebaggery of Pete, and thankfully no one seemed to mind, not even Pete, which was more of an unthankfully in Patrick's head, despite the fact all rationality said he should hate him right now.

Patrick didn't do hate, especially not with Pete Wentz.

"You're such a bitch, Ryan." Brendon teased his best friend in a totally platonic and non flirty manner because no, there's no way in hell that two incredibly close gay guys who acted like married couple within weeks of knowing each other could ever possibly have feelings for one another.

"My bitch." He added as Ryan opened his mouth to add some stupid sleep deprived comment in response. Brendon's addition to his statement, causing Ryan to stop and let a smile slide over his lips before he continued.

"Your bitch." He had to agree, in a totally platonic manner, of course, why on earth would there ever been any kind of homosexual tension, let alone a relationship in god forbid it, a fanfiction, shocking.

"You two are really cute together though, you should totally go out." Patrick could help but comment as Ryan sat playing with Brendon's fringe - the two of them having been inseparable ever since Ryan arrived here a few weeks ago, and it didn't exactly take a genius to hazard a decent guess at the reason why.

Ryan blushed at that, attempting to hide it behind his fringe, but his fringe hadn't enough emo game to hide at least half of his face sufficiently at wish - this was a skill Pete had mastered, of course being the emo king.

"We kind of went on a date... thing... a while back... and I guess..." Ryan continued, his hands moving awkwardly as he spoke, no longer having the distraction of Brendon's hair, as of course that would lead to even more teasing, not that Patrick was the type, of course.

"That's really cute." Patrick let his face fall into a smile, genuinely happy for them, but with what seemed like everyone in a relationship of some sort, he couldn't help but think of Pete, and his boyfriend, Gabe, and then Mikey Way, and Alicia Simmons - however on earth that had came to be was still unbeknownst to Patrick and just about the rest of the world.

"It's not official." Brendon added, drooping his head a little in order to hide his blush, but of course by now everyone knew what was happening there.

"Then make it?" Patrick suggested with a grin as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which really it was - the two of them had been absolutely lovestruck for one another as soon as they met, it was just feelings from day one, and how Patrick wished it could have been just that easy with Pete.

But nothing was ever easy with Pete, and Patrick knew that from day one.

"Okay." Brendon exhaled as he pulled his gaze up to meet Ryan's, who was sat on the step above him outside the school cafeteria. "Ryan Ross, be my boyfriend?"

Ryan giggled at first, a blush gracing his cheeks once more although he'd already been expecting it. "Hmm... that's a hard one." He joked, pretending he wasn't jumping and screaming at the chance to say yes, which he totally wasn't. "I guess so, huh?" He winked at Brendon, who really didn’t need any other reassurance that it was a yes - that killer blush really did all the talking.

"Bad news guys." Ray's voice broke the mini wedding that was occurring as Patrick complacently third wheeled with a rather stern and fed up tone, letting everyone instantly know, without him even having to say anything, that Mikey had done something stupid again.

"What has he done now?" Brendon asked, making no effort to detach himself from Ryan, despite knowing Ray shared some of Mikey's views on homosexuality, mostly due to his upbringing and not ignorance, unlike Mikey himself.

"He just texted me as he was walking into school saying that he saw Pete and that he now Gabe isn't there with him, he's going to 'teach him a lesson'." Ray looked down at his cell phone once more; desperately searching for any response to the six panicked texts he'd sent in response. "He hasn't even seen my responses."

"Let him punch Pete - he was an asshole to Patrick." Brendon shrugged it off, causing Patrick to toss him the most horrified expression ever, despite the fact that he was the 'victim' here.

"I'm not letting Pete get beat up. He's an... asshole, that's just him, and he doesn't deserve Mikey to beat him up like that," Patrick chose the opportunity to look Brendon right in the eye as he stressed the next part, "and the main reason Mikey hates him is because he's gay, so you know, are you letting Mikey beat him up because he's got a boyfriend?"

"Perhaps that outweighs my hate for Pete and what he did to you..." Brendon paused, shaking his head, almost as if he couldn't believe he was doing this. "Marginally, of course. Marginally."

Patrick kept quiet about the fact that he was only so vocal about this because he never wanted Pete to be directly hurt by the person he loved, even if Pete had done the same to him, Patrick would just never wish that on anyone, and if his fake boyfriend wasn't around to protect him, Patrick reckoned he was happy to take the place of back up fake boyfriend.

Even if it was vey unlikely for him to be doing any actual protecting. He could most definitely be there for emotional support though.

-

"Huh, so your little boyfriend isn't here to protect you now is he, Wentz?" The eyeliner clad boy froze at a voice he hated that he instantly recognised as Mikey's, his whole body loosing sense as he completely seized up, his head turning slowly as he snuck a glance at the guy he totally had no feelings for fastly approaching him with a snarl and a fist kept far too recklessly by his side.

"Mikey, what have I ever done to you?" Pete asked, what was an honest question, looking up at the boy who now stood barely a metre away from him just outside the school gates - the hate between them had long progressed from friendly rivalry to a cold hearted discrimination which of course only the cocky move of coming out had brought upon, but Pete didn't quite want to blame himself for this, even he felt through and through like it was nothing but his fault.

"Be a filthy little fag - no one likes you, okay, and I don't want your disgusting little faggot of a boyfriend threatening me, okay?" Mikey snapped, pushing himself up in a terrible attempt at intimidation and Pete laughed it off in a terrible attempt pulling on the facade that he didn't care about Mikey Way at all.

"Then leave us alone." Pete continued, pushing the words between his lips firmly - like he meant them, and he did, more than anything. "Leave us alone and then maybe I can forget that you ever existed, Mikey, but of course you never would do the honours of ever making anything that easy." He let out a sigh with the hidden meaning behind his words and tried to focus on Gabe, his wonderful boyfriend and not the asshole he used to be just a little in love with, and was now fighting with the fact that he still was.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, huh faggot?" He shouted that last word at the top of his lungs, intimidation being his intentions and catching the attention of Frank Iero walking up the road, a little late to school because he totally didn't spend all last night texting his boyfriend until he fell asleep and then the rest of it over worrying about him.

Frank had of course jerked up at the one word he hated like hell, his eyes focusing on none other than Mikey Way, and he almost rolled his eyes at the typicality he felt forever caged up and disgusted inside his own silence, but he could never stand up to that, not really, if he valued his life that was - this was Catholic school, after all.

"Don't call me a fucking faggot when your head's so far up your own ass you're practically fucking yourself with it!" Frank froze at the voice he could recognise as nothing other than Pete's, and despite the fact he hadn't really been here for most of the drama that had kicked off between them, he could just about piece together the rest.

"Hey!" he called out as he approached the two of them, gaining both of their attention instantly. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing to worry about, Frank." Mikey laughed it off and pretended like he wasn't intending on beating up Pete Wentz and for having a boyfriend of all things. Mikey was certainly in ignorance of his own douchebaggery and that was truly a dangerous thing.

"Hey, Mikey fucking Way if you lay one fucking hand on him I swear to god!" Came a fourth voice, drawing three sets of eyes to Brendon, and Ryan, Ray, and Patrick beside him. Pete blushed as he noticed Patrick, the guy still standing up for him despite what he said to him, and maybe he didn't deserve anyone at all.

"Oh look it's the fag parade..." Mikey let out a deep sigh, rolling his eyes in a gesture concocted so that not even Frank who was watching ever move from the guy with deep scrutiny with the intentions of perhaps one having the slightest clue as to what the hell was going on in his head.

"Mikey, just drop it." Ray was the one to intervene, the only one naive enough to believe that Mikey was going to stand down, let alone apologise - his stubbornness brought that entirely out of the question. "Please, you're being stupid."

"Me? Stupid?" Mikey cascaded down into a fit of almost maniacal laughter. "You're hanging out with a bunch of fags, what the fuck? At least I'm not stupid enough to ever be friends with a bunch of fucking faggots."

And then Frank couldn't help himself.

He started laughing, drawing all attention to himself and a furrowing of the brows from Mikey who most likely expected him to stand up for him, and was blissfully unaware to the fact Frank was in fact dating his older brother.

"What's so funny, man?" 

"Nothing - you're just being stupid, Mikey." Frank shook his head as he silenced his laughter; glad that Mikey was unbelievably thick and thick enough as not to notice the bombshell he'd oh so cautiously just dropped.

Ryan, Brendon, and Patrick, however, they weren't quite as stupid, their jaws dropping as Frank pushed his way through the group on a beeline to the back of the art block and his next cigarette, hoping that Jamia would be there to provide clarity on his situation, or tauntingly snide comments at very least.

Frank reckoned anything other than dropped jaws would be beyond welcome right now.

-


	12. Ryan's Dick, And Brendon's Ass In Those Jeans

And seventeen year old Mikey Way still can't help but look at the picture his brother had been ripped out of, sitting proud on the mantle piece with only him and his parents shown. It had been years, and Mikey knew not to care for his brother, especially since he was a faggot, and had only runaway out of spite, but he couldn't help but miss him, at times that was.

He didn't miss the arguments Gerard caused at the dinner table, and just about everywhere, but after he left and the arguments continued, it soon become clear that perhaps it wasn't his older brother at fault here, but still Mikey couldn't help but hate and blame him as his parents took out their hatred on him, because the arguments didn't stop, they just moved onto him.

Mikey Way clutched his cellphone as he sat on the sofa almost rigidly, feeling nothing but alien in his own home, his eyes fixated upon the picture, absent of Gerard, and the photograph he held in his other hand, displaying his brother - the part of the photo his parents had discarded, and Mikey couldn't help but notice how, despite his mouth being curled up, he wasn't smiling, not quite, because in this house, he was never happy, not quite.

He shook his head, pocketing the photo of his brother with a sigh, knowing that these were just things he shouldn't think about: god knows where Gerard was now, what he was doing, how he was living, even if he was still alive, but all Mikey knew was that most certainly his brother didn't care anymore.

He didn't care, so why should Mikey? The only thing Gerard brought anymore was the grief in his mother's eyes and the arguments his father made as a result, and as he clutched his cell phone in hand, not having received a reply from Alicia in hours now, it became apparent that he'd have to stay to witness this, and he really did not want to.

As bad as it made him feel to say so, he just didn’t want to have to go through the trouble, and he even doubted that it was anything but stubborn ignorance that had brought his parents into this situation, because from the yelling and stress he overheard from the kitchen, he knew that they didn't want him here either.

His mother had continued to text Gerard after he left, perhaps just out of spite, and even Mikey thought it a little unfair, but he let it happen - his older brother had made it clear that Mikey was none of his business, and therefore he was none of Mikey's, but never had Gerard replied.

Never had Gerard replied to a single text his mother sent.

And of course that was until today, because for no reason otherwise would Mikey be sat so rigid and uncomfortable in his own skin, placed almost robotically on the sofa; lifeless in appearance, his eyes fixated on the photos Gerard had been ripped out of, and how much effort his parents had seemed to have put into ensuring that any visitors to the household would never even know their gay son existed.

Mikey thought it odd how he had replied, and how after seeing the messages he found it apparent that something had changed. Maybe Gerard had simply stopped being gay? Even though Pete had screamed at him that that wasn't how it worked.

Mikey took a moment to wonder if Pete faced the same things at home that Gerard did, and instantly wished he didn't, because even if he hated the guy, he didn't want Pete to be kicked out of the house and tear his family apart.

And really, the more Mikey thought of it, the stupider it seemed, and the more Mikey thought about it, he knew that there was nothing he could do about it - it was just how things were, none of his business. That had been made clear.

He texted Alicia again out of anxiety, begging to go over to hers.

She didn't reply.

She hadn't even seen the message.

And the text message conversation his mother had shown him last night flashed through Mikey's mind. She'd told him that he doesn't care about us, and that she assumes he won't be coming for dinner tomorrow, even just to let everyone know that he exists still.

Something changed with Gerard, because, because he replied with a simple and almost emotionless 'Ok. I'll come.’ and that was when everything fell apart, and of course, his brother was still blamed for it.

Mikey pushed the photograph of his brother deeper into his pocket as if in denial to himself that he'd kept the thing for years now, because maybe he wanted to remember his big brother before all of this - hell, he always was in arguments and causing trouble. Gerard didn't like religion, and Gerard didn't like rules, and Gerard didn't like his parents, but Gerard always liked Mikey.

That was until Mikey had made it clear as to which side he was on, when they found him kissing another guy when he'd been left home alone, and Mikey didn't quite regret the use of the word 'fag' as much as he should have done, because really he was just shocked.

He knew about fags from people at school and his parents and he knew they were bad, and he knew that they were sinners and God didn't care for them, and it was so hard to fit all that onto Gerard when it had all come together with him and that guy kissing in the living room, home alone.

And Mikey tried to stop crying as he remembered how Gerard always cared about him, and how at first Gerard went round from time to time, mainly just to see him, just to see that Mikey was alright, and how soon or later, he had began to turn his older brother away, and how sooner or later, Gerard grew to hate him too.

And his parents thought that everything was working perfectly again, but really never had things ever been so messed up, perhaps not even now with his parents cursing in the kitchen and Mikey totally not crying in the living room, and with his brother stood outside the door, his breath caught in his throat as his finger hovered above the doorbell.

He questioned why he'd done this, and why he'd come here, and how he'd just walked out of Lindsey's place, leaving a vague note regarding the fact that he'd gone out and not where he was going, and he ignored the text from Frank asking if they could meet up today, and made stupid decision, and a stupid decision to prove a point.

Because Bert was wrong, his mother was wrong too - he wasn't nothing, he wasn't too scared to walk back in his own home, and he wasn't pathetic.

And he inhaled like it was the last breath he'd ever take as his finger hovered above the doorbell, and he wasn't pathetic.

He proved that as it began to ring.

-

At first Mrs Way almost pretended as if she didn't hear it, and if she didn't know what the doorbell could only connate to, and she pretended that she hadn't been secretly wishing that all this time for some reason her eldest son just wouldn't turn up, because then things would just run as normal and she could continue to disown and insult him half heartedly and not have to be involved in matters of his personal life and any kind of moralities.

Mr Way, however, jumped at the ring of the doorbell, the kitchen growing silence as his yelling ceased, knowing exactly what this meant, and shaking at the very thought of it, because despite what his over prized masculinity would have him resist, he felt guilty, and he was almost scared of what his son may say to him now - he wasn't a teenager anymore, he was twenty five, and very much out of his control.

"Do... you want to answer... it?' He finally dragged the words from his lips, meeting his wife's gaze, who was currently setting the table for four for first time in years. She only rolled her eyes in response, gesturing to the roast chicken she held, leaving it to her husband to speak to their disowned son who they hadn't quite expected to actually turn up at all.

It was then that both parents noticed their younger son stood in the hallway, his eyes set upon them both as he looked between his parents and held his breath, giving a silent prayer that things wouldn't go into absolute atrocities - they'd go bad without question, but atrocious, perhaps not.

"I'll get it." Mikey sighed, pocketing his cell phone, giving up hope on Alicia opening up as his escape route to an inevitable reunion he was destined to face someday, and perhaps, perhaps it would be easier for his parents if he Mikey was here too, and then they wouldn't be forced to talk to their 'fag son' all the time.

The doorbell rung again and Gee began to have second thoughts, cringing as he caught his reflection in the window - he didn't look female per say, but definitely very feminine: the long hair and eye make up definitely wasn't helping. He didn’t care though; smirking a little to himself, because perhaps making an impression was exactly his intention.

Mikey almost gasped at the figure that stood before him - it his brother, whom he hadn't really seen in a few years now, but it was his brother wearing make up and girl jeans, and he knew that already this wouldn't be a good starting point with his parents.

"Hey..." Gee broke the silence first, looking his younger brother up and down, forcing back the urge to attack him in a massive hug, because he was unsure as to what kind of terms they were on and whether Mikey still hated him or not, he suspected that he still did, since he still lived in this house. Gee wouldn't have been all that surprised if his mother went around telling people that he was the antichrist himself.

"Hi." Mikey replied, his voice devoid of tone as he couldn't quite take his eyes off just how feminine his brother looked, and how it was actually kind of weird to see him like this, but Mikey reckoned that despite being brothers, they were hardly on good enough terms for it to be acceptable for him to comment upon that.

"I'm sorry, Mikey. For any trouble I cause you by being here and acting the way I am - this was a rash decision and a stupid one at that, but I think perhaps I needed to come back... some thing happened... and I felt perhaps I had already done enough stupid things recently for one more not to matter, but if it matters to you, I'm sorry, because even if they stop me from being their son anymore, I'll always think of you as my brother."

And Mikey reckoned that right now he was truly speechless, his eyes fixated upon his brother, and how it became utterly apparent that something had changed, because for once Gee was agreeable, happy, almost optimistic, and not his usual negative, argumentative, rebellious self. Perhaps he'd grown up? But Mikey would place it more on the fact that for the first time ever, his brother looked perhaps not happy, but complacent with things, with himself, and that complacency was the best place Gee had ever been.

"Something's changed, hasn't it?" Mikey finally asked into the silence, pushing back the thoughts of how much time they were wasting away with moments of silence and how his parents would think of that, but right now, with the stress they were under, he reckoned the longer it was before they actually had to speak to their son, the better.

"Huh?"

"You look happy, Gerard. That's... that's new..." Mikey breathed out, shaking his head at his brother, unsure as to how to feel about him, because really he had missed him, and despite all he'd been told, right now, it seemed to matter that he was his brother, rather than a fag.

The twenty five year old grinned at that, "yeah, if you find yourself with the right people - happy people, people that make you happy, you end up that way too. It was only this place and that school, bringing me down, Mikes." He stopped as the nickname slipped out, considering how his brother may react with the tension of prolonged hatred between them.

Mikey didn't know how to react, ignoring it completely and focusing on his brother's words. "So, you're alright then? You've got a place to stay? You've got friends, and things?" Because even Mikey couldn't deny that he'd been concerned that for all this time his brother had been wasting away his town in a homeless shelter or something.

"Yeah, I live across town, I've gotta few friends... gotta boyfriend..." Gee trailed the last one off gingerly, barely meeting Mikey's eyes after releasing the words, questioning of his brother's reaction, after all, his sexuality had been the thing that had torn them apart in the first place.

"Oh..." Mikey exhaled, his head turning itself in circles as he tried not to say anything that'd mess things up. "Good." And he smiled, he smiled for his brother, and he prayed that didn't look all too fake, because inside he felt as if he was going be sick at the thought of the events to come.

-

"Pete..." 

Patrick exhaled the word like a sigh; a burst of breath rushing to leave you, but very much like Pete, it may have physically left you, but never quite completely, always seeming to be around somewhere in the back of your mind, or catching your eye when the situation didn't call for it.

Patrick looked at the boy that had punched Frank Iero in the face, and yet, he still couldn't quite hate him.

It was getting horribly ignorant by this point, and yet Patrick still found himself stood beside Pete, his eyes focused upon the more tanned of the two boys stood an awkward metre apart with almost twin black eyes and glares shared between one another.

Patrick wished things didn't have to be like this, and sometimes, he wished that Pete wouldn't have to be so uptight about things, almost as if he doesn't want anyone to understand, and letting them, dear god no.

The fact that a scene like this was taking place at a kids park, and they were acting just like children, would have perhaps amused Patrick if he had the time for amusement in his head ran into a train wreck by Pete Wentz.

Pete had punched Frank, and without a doubt, Frank had punched him right back. 

Patrick reckoned that perhaps Ray's idea that everyone should met up and talk this out, wasn't exactly the best of ideas. Ray, however didn't invite Mikey, which was something that hadn't gone unnoticed at all, but no one exactly blamed him at all.

"You don't understand, Frank, you don't. Stop acting like you're fucking special, you don't what it's like to have to live under the shadow and shame of your sexuality and who you are, and you don't have to be punched in the face for those beliefs." Pete spat at boy stood awkwardly away from him; Ray having restrained Frank, and Brendon having restrained Pete after they'd gotten the second punch in, Ray muttering something about violence and idiots.

"Even if you feel so fucked up and mistreated you don't have to go and be such a dick to Patrick, huh?" Frank stood up for the ginger boy standing a little away from the commotion, perhaps not quite such much so out of compassion for him, but spite for Pete, but right now that didn't seem to matter all that much morally at all.

"And you don't just have to laugh this all off like you think you're above it and all of us, and then walk off to go have a fucking cigarette with Jamia, because of course she's a much better friend to you than anyone here-" Pete attacked him for the sake of it, words tumbling from his lips with no regard for the impact they may have.

"You smoke?" Ryan stepped forward in order to judge Frank's response by his face and not just his words, almost shocked by the matter.

"Is that why you go off with her all the time? To kill off your lungs?" Ray questioned - not angry, just sort of disappointed and Frank wondered what kind of effect laughing it all back in their faces would have. "Is it true?"

"I thought you and Jamia... had a thing..." Brendon blushed a little, perhaps even just for suggesting it.

"She's a lesbian, and I’m- I'm not single." That was certainly an interesting way to word it - he wasn't lying, but he wasn't exactly revealing the whole truth either.

"So do you?"

"He does." Patrick spoke up before Pete, whom after the commotion had fallen into silence, perhaps not intending to let something like this out, and perhaps not hating Frank, but just the pretence his words were under, and the punch that he returned.

Frank met Ray's eyes in the silence, the two of them sharing an unspoken conversation, consisting mainly of 'we'll talk about this later' and 'please dear god do not tell Mikey'. Frank almost felt like Ray was the lenient parent and Mikey was the strict authorities one sometimes, but the image of Ray and Mikey married was rather disturbing, so he dismissed that analogy as quickly as possible.

"God... what else don't we know about you, Frank?" Brendon rolled his words off in nervous laughter, no one quite knowing just what to say to this, and Frank couldn't help but cringe at the thought of just how they would react if it was another secret that had found its way out.

"A lot." Frank admitted, shaking his head, his eyes hitting the ground, swallowing hard as he considered admitting to his sexuality at least, but dropping the thought the moment it'd entered his mind. "Enough for me to argue against you." He directed his last words at Pete, leaving people to make of that what they will as he got to his feet.

"This was an awfully nice peace treaty meeting. I'm good with you all, whatever, but if you actually want to sort this mess out, go talk to Mikey about it, maybe punch him in the face a few times, because he's the one causing all this shit, albeit mostly indirectly, but not always."

"Where are you going?" Ryan asked as Frank made his way to the gate and out of the empty play park.

"Somewhere. Fucking somewhere."

And as Frank started running, Ray followed him without question. Brendon's eyes lighting up at the thought of drama and excitement, following soon after, and Ryan's dick lighting up at how Brendon's ass looked in those jeans, running after it.

"Just us left then..." Pete exhaled, the words almost forced from his lips, snapping Patrick's attention back to the boy curled up against the bench, a crooked smile pushing onto his lips as he noticed Patrick's smile - not quite so crooked, but just as goofy.

"I guess." Patrick added, sitting beside him.

"I'm sorry." Pete apologised, for quite possibly the first time in his life.

"It's okay. You're still my best friend." Patrick looked over Pete's mistakes for the thousandth time, because he still just couldn’t put a stop to the way his stomach filled with butterflies when Pete smiled.

"You're mine too." Pete sighed once more before continuing. "All this mess; Mikey, Gabe, relationships, arguments... all that shit doesn't matter even half as much as you do to me. I was stupid to forget that. You're so important, Patrick."

Pete smiled, and the butterflies in Patrick's stomach came in hordes.

And Patrick smiled; unaware that Pete could feel the butterflies too.

-

"Frank! For god's sake, you can't just run away from your problems!" Ray shouted after his friend, catching up to the short-legged boy after a while; Ryan and Brendon nowhere to be seen behind them, which would allude to some sort of ass related distraction that they had encountered on the way.

"But I can run away from my friends, and right now that seems to be working just fine." He met Ray's eyes, meaning it, and meaning it all too much as he made his way towards Lindsey's, hoping Ray would give up at some point on the way there, or things, yeah, they'd really get awkward.

"Frank, please, just talk to me about what's bothering you. You can trust me - I've kept the whole gay thing, even if I've been taught that it isn't right, I respect our friendship more than what people stood at the front of churches tell me, and I think you should respect that." Frank stopped at that, mostly at the mention of the word 'gay' - Ray's knowledge of the situation with him and his not quite girlfriend, brewing away at that sickening feeling in his stomach.

"At what length would go to keep something a secret from Mikey for our friendship? So much so that it would be morally against you and Mikey's friendship?" 

"That depends on what kind of secret it is-"

Frank had heard enough, and in fact the thought that he could even perhaps trust Ray with a secret like the one he held so tight to his chest was in fact nothing other than utterly preposterous, but Ray couldn’t help the guilt swelling up in his stomach at Frank's disappointment as he turned away from his best friend, continuing down the road in search of a destination unknown to the curly haired of the two friends.

"But, if it's hurting you this much, and it matters to you this much, then, Frank, I think I can make an exception, and especially if no one else knows, because that really isn't doing good for your head, going crazy up in there."

Frank shook his head: Ray had broken his morals for Frank - whatever next, this was just ridiculous, but he couldn't help how his friend's words stuck with him, and for once just shake this all off was something he couldn't quite seem to do.

"A few other people know." Frank assured him with a weak smile - clearly faked, but effort had been put in nonetheless. "The only one of those that you know is Jamia, though."

"Frank, is she really just a smoking buddy?" Ray met him with skepticism at that one. The curly haired boy wasn't exactly the one to doubt his friends, but suspicions and doubts were something he wasn't entirely above.

"She's one of my best friends, Ray. That's it. She just really doesn't like you lot... and I doubt Mikey really likes our friendship at all. And please let's discuss my nicotine addiction another day." And again, despite his morals, Ray obliged.

"So she knows, and I don't?" He tried his best not to be jealous, but, you know, things like that don't always go to plan.

"Solely because she'd rather die than talk to Mikey, let alone tell him. You and him are best friends."

"You and him are best friends too." ray reminded Frank, ignorant to what prevented that within its entirety.

"And this secret, this is the complication, and I feel like with this - it's either this or Mikey, and with how much of a douche he's being recently, it's making it far too easy to choose."

"Frank. I swear I won't tell him whatever you say - I just can't deal with this much underlying tension between all of us. You can tell me, and then I'll figure out a way we can sort this out, okay?" Ray offered, but he offered something that didn't appeal to Frank in the slightest.

"This isn't a thing to sort out, this is a thing Mikey has to deal with, and won't be able to. This is a thing Mikey will hate me... on top of the gay thing, of course." Frank shook his head, sighing. "You don't understand, do you?"

"Frank, I'm not going to understand until you tell me." And with the sincerity in Ray's gaze, Frank chanced a stupid decision - perhaps simply because the opportunity to ruin his own life presented itself.

"Yeah..." He exhaled, his eyes rolling up in their sockets to the sky, and praying to God to help him, despite the fact that in a situation such as this, God would really rather do anything but. "You know Mikey's brother?"

"Gerard? Yeah?" Ray looked confused, and Frank could do nothing more but flash him apologetic eyes.

"He's my boyfriend."

And then Frank was pretty sure the whole world came to a halt.

-

"So dressed like that? What are you? Part of a freak show? A transvestite? A girl?" And Gee couldn't help but snort aloud at the last one - the fact that his parents would rather him be the main act of a freak show than ever possible transition to female amusing him in an oddly sadistic manner, and maybe if it would be worthwhile, he would have argued the cause, but these were his parents; their ignorance was eternal.

"None of those things." He commented casually, stabbing a boiled potato almost violently with his fork before it broke down into a fluffy over cooked mess, at which point he gave up and stabbed the stalk of a floret of broccoli, twirling it around on his fork as he observed the burnt edges and how uncomfortable Mikey looked next to him, glancing at his cell phone every few seconds as if he was expecting something important.

Whereas all Mikey was expecting was some godforsaken reason to get out of here before things got particularly ugly, however his chances didn't seem all that fruitful at all, and perhaps that was karma for you, and perhaps Mikey reckoned he couldn't eat another overcooked potato without being sick, but he daren't cause a fuss or anger his parents unnecessarily, so he ate slowly and swallowed the sickeningly feeling crawling up the back of his throat.

"Why the fuck are you wearing make up then?" Mr Way spat at his oldest son, their eyes meeting for the first time in years and all that lay between them was pure hatred, and Gee felt as if he was going to be sick too, but not with overcooked potatoes, but the memories, the memories he could never quite escape.

"I like it. I like wearing it." He answered, catching his reflection in the mirror on the back wall and confirming to his ego, that he did, in fact, look fabulous right now.

"I don't like you wearing it. God wouldn't have it - bad enough you getting fucked up the ass, let alone you start dressing like a fucking girl." Gee considered yelling back something about how God didn't approve of many things and all of them utterly ridiculous, but he hadn't the energy; feeling absolutely bloated from overcooked, tasteless vegetables.

"Did you just invite me here to insult me?" He asked what was a genuine question, and Mikey considered faking a text from Ray to get him out of here, because when the war begun, he really didn't fancy being stuck in the crossfire.

"We didn't invite you in the first place!" Mr Way slammed his knife and fork down against the table, the whole room freezing as a result, the elder of the Way brothers laughing almost psychotically into the silence, shaking his head at his father as he pushed the remainder of his badly cooked meal aside.

"You implied that there was a problem with me not being here, so I reckoned I did you a favour by solving said problem." He continued, fighting down the smirk that tugged at the corners of his lips like a yappy, attention seeking terrier.

"The only problem here is that you're a fucking faggot." His father screamed at him, standing up, almost expecting Gerard to do so, and maybe eighteen year old Gerard would have done so, but twenty five year old Gerard had eaten far too many overcooked carrots to even consider moving for the next few minutes at the very least. "You can confess your sins and hope God will forgive you or get the fuck out of this family - I don't wanting you fucking with Mikey, putting ideas in his head."

Gee just shook his head, raising his eyebrows as he met his mother's gaze - she'd be silent for the duration of the meal, letting her husband scream at his son without consequence or even motivation. "Mum?"

"Gerard, I-" She began, her words stuttered, almost as if she hadn't an opinion at all.

"Don't bring her into this." And Gee soon figured out why that was, it seems Mr Way didn't exactly allow opinions of others in this household. "What will it be? Faggot? Grow the fuck up and find a fucking wife, huh? Or are you still going to keep on in this disgusting act of rebellion?"

"It's not an 'act'-" He began to explain himself, not at all surprised as his father cut him off.

"Bullshit. I know what it's like, you disobey God, because you think its 'cool', you disobey your parents because you think you're 'cool', but you're not a teenager anymore, Gerard. Grow the fuck up."

"No."

Silence fell over the room as the word tumbled into the air, eyes widening as it became evident that the speaker was not in fact Gee, but Mikey.

"No, dad..." Mikey shook his head with a sincere sigh. "That's not how it works."

"How would you know? What are you a faggot as well?"

"No." Mikey stood his ground, standing up; facing his father in a manner, which just about even Mr Way himself was speechless at. "But I know, I know this kid, this kid at my school. His name's Pete- what do you care? But he's a fa- he's a homosexual, and you know, you know for the amount of shit I give him for it... the way I make his life hell just because he likes guys, don't you think he'd stop liking guys if he could? He'd want it to stop, and if he could make it stop, he'd do that, don't you think?"

Silence.

"But he can't make it stop. He can't change that." Mikey met his father's eyes at this point. "And it needs to stop, so I'm going to make it stop." He then turned to his older brother, who sat there, mouth agape - never so proud of his younger brother, and they shared a smile, a genuine smile, and Mikey wanted to cry, because he thought that maybe now he'd gotten his brother back, finally.

"It's not an act." Gerard shook his head at his parents, grabbing his coat and storming out, trying his best not to cry before he made it out of the house at the very least.

Mr and Mrs Way stood in a silent shock as their oldest son walked out of their house for the thousandth time, and for the first time, their younger son followed him.

-


	13. Pete's Big Gay Crush On Mikey Way

"Gerard!" Mikey's voice came in irregular breathy shouts, directed in his brother's direction, as the older of the two Way siblings stormed out of the house he once called his own and set off across the road and as far away from this sleepy little neighbourhood, swallowed up in ignorance and blinding faith, he could get.

"Please, just talk to me - I'm on your side." And that was a sentence that stopped the both of them in their tracks; the older of the two having not expected of anything of such understanding, especially from his brother who'd been brought up with nothing other than orders to hate him and his 'kind'.

"Really? Or are you just fucking curious, examining me like some sort of fucked up scientist, because you know what, Mikey? No one seems to get this, but I'm human too - I have feelings too, I hurt too, and when they refuse to accept their own son for the thousandth time, it hurts me, and from the apathetic glances upon their faces, I guess I'm hurting more than they do." His words came off with a snarky edge and a questionably violent tone, having been through this shit far too many times to regard the matter with any amount of patience.

"Gerard, please, just talk to me about this..." Mikey shook his head as he released what was nothing more than a defeated sigh, yet feeling more offended by his own parents than the man beside him who barely resembled his brother, or an actual man for that matter. "You're right in that I don't understand, but I'm never going to unless you give me that chance and let me, just please explain, we can go somewhere private and talk and I promise you I'll be all ears."

The darker haired of the two scoffed at that, rolling his eyes in an almost systematic procedure, like he'd expected nothing more than what he took to be overpriced shit for words from his brother. "You say that now you don't know what my story entails." He paused momentarily, perhaps just for a breath of air, but continued before his brother could possibly argue his case further. "I can't tell you everything anyway, because some things are not mine to tell."

"Then tell me what you can, and I'll try my best to understand from that." Gee was of course skeptical at first, watching as Mikey's expression morphed into one of pleading; the two of them stood on the pavement, oblivious to world around them. "Please - this is all just stupid, I want to be your brother again, and not have to hate you just because of what you are."

"It's not what I am, it's who I love. My sexuality doesn't define me, and it shouldn't be important elsewhere but between my boyfriend and I."

"Gerard, you can't just expect me to be on the exact same level as you and understand everything perfectly, when your world is a world I've been pushed away from and been nothing but lied to about." Mikey took a step forward; eliminating the distance between him and the brother he hadn't seen for years before today. "You know what our parents are like."

"Your parents." Gee expressed with a certain anger that almost made Mikey uncomfortable. "They want nothing to do with me, remember."

"That doesn't change the fact that they brought you into this world-"

"Yeah, can we not go all preachy with the Jesus shit? If you wanna understand, then I suggest you shut the fuck up and just let me talk." His tone wasn't the kindest or certainly the most accepting, but Gee reckoned he'd been through enough bullshit with this family of his to be allowed to treat them in a fashion not even half as mind wrecking.

"Okay. Do you want me to take you to the quiet place, it's just at the start of the woods, like two minutes away?"

Gee just nodded, keeping his words inside for the first time today.

-

The two brothers sat down against the trunk of an ancient tree, the woods stretching out in a great expanse behind them, and the hill they'd made their way up and the few more sparsely spread houses down below.

"So like no one comes up here?" Gee thought to make sure, scared more so that someone would recognise him, rather than if they encountered some little homophobic fuck from Mikey's school who overheard them - he did however take a moment to consider that Mikey was probably shitting himself over the both of the reasons listed prior, and the older of the two brothers perhaps reconsidered just how much Mikey meant with this.

"No, nothing here except the odd stray dog or something. Only my friends and I know about this place-"

"Oh, you actually have friends... I thought since you were such an asshole-" For once his tone was light-hearted as the words slipped out in nothing more than a joke; the kind of conversation brothers were supposed to have.

"Yeah, shut up." Mikey shook his head, a small smile gracing his lips, because Gee and him, without hatred, that just felt natural. "Ray, and Frank... not exactly Mr Popular, but whatever."

Gee froze at Frank's name, remembering how he'd come to mention his younger brother before, but to hear it from Mikey's own lips - that just sent chills down his spine. He took a moment to wonder just how Mikey might react to the fact that his boyfriend was in fact poor little Frank; he dismissed the thought immediately, it making him blushing in an all too risky manner.

"It's harder than you think to be like I am." Gee threw the statement out of what seemed to be like nowhere, but inside, he was thinking of Frank as he spoke, and when the truth about his sexuality eventually came out, and how that'd affect him. "People reject you left, right, and centre - family, friends, everyone. You get bullied, you get harassed, you get disowned, you get kicked out."

"I'm sorry for all that's happened to you... I’m sorry."

He ignored his brother's words and continued, "you get looks on the street, and you're ashamed to be who you are, and sometimes I feel even as if my closest friends feel a little uncomfortable about me and my boyfriend, and it fucks with you, because they're your friends, and... sometimes I just wish I knew what people are thinking, because sometimes when they don't say it outright, it even hurts more."

"Oh, you actually have friends... I thought since you were such an asshole..." Mikey mimicked his brother's words with a smirk.

"Shut up, you, you can talk." Gee let a smile hug his lips, letting his friendships be known without names, perhaps just in case Frank had said anything, because although, Mikey seemed pretty okay to accept right now, he didn't know just how well that would translate to the seventeen year old boy he totally wasn't dating.

"Gerard-" Mikey began, a question begging at his lips, only to be cut off by none other than his own brother, and for once with no offward intentions.

"Mikey, I don't know if you find this weird, but I'd prefer it if you called me 'Gee', I mean you probably won't understand this, but it's gender neutral, and gender's a bit foggy for me right now, and no one besides mum and dad calls me that now. I don't want to put you in the same category as them anymore; you're trying."

"Okay, Gee?" Mikey pulled an awkward smile across his lips as he tested out the new name, unsure at first, but soon settling into it, because he was trying for once, because right now, more than anything, he wanted to make things right with his brother.

"Yeah, Gee." He tossed the nickname back at his brother with a returned and almost proud smile.

"Wait, what do you mean about the gender? You don't want to have your dick cut off or something, do you?" Mikey, of course, ignorant regarding the matter, but for once, Gee found himself not at all angered by his brother's naivety, after all, he certainly wasn't the one to blame for the mis-education that had been forced down his throat.

"It's not like that," he blushed a little, letting a laugh catch in his throat, "it's hard to explain; I barely even understand it myself, and it's not that I want to be female, per say, I just like looking feminine, like... this probably freaks you out, but I usually wear more make up than this, and I... Mikey, I like wearing skirts and dresses."

Mikey was silent at that, looking his brother up and down and struggling to imagine him in a dress, and right now, thinking that such an image was devoid from his mind was most likely something for the better. "So you just dress like a girl..?"

"It's more complicated than that... I just... I don't like feeling like a girl, well some days I do, and some days, most days, I just like feeling feminine. It varies, it really does, and it's confusing as hell, so I'm not surprised you don't understand, but... yeah... I've only toned it today for your parents - I doubt they'd take anything I say seriously if I turned up in a dress." There was truth to his words, and Mikey had to agree.

"So, like... does your boyfriend know about this? How does he feel about this... I mean... if he's gay, why does he want to be with someone who looks like a feels like a girl?"

"Yeah, he knows. He's fine with it, and I didn't have to exactly tell him or anything - the first time we met, I was dressed in a miniskirt, so yeah..." Mikey gasped at that, his eyes widening as he pulled his gaze away from his brother, stopping whatever his imagination was concocting at once. "I tried heels, but I kept falling over in them. I was slightly drunk as well - it was a party kind of thing, but only a few people."

"Sexuality is much more complex than just straight or gay, though, Mikey." He told his brother, meeting his gaze with a stern face as he wondered how well his brother would take this; he was giving him far too much today, seriously. "It's complicated, and you know, technically it is a homosexual relationship, because I say I would identify as a male, and so does he, and the whole feminine thing, that's just extra, I mean, if he's attracted to dudes in dresses, then surely that's his business." He let a smile slip his lips as he thought back to the party he'd first met Frank at. "He's seriously the best boyfriend, though."

"I'm glad you're happy, okay." And they shared a smile as Mikey's eyes drifted up to the sky; processing the information he'd just been thrust upon, and with a degree of difficultly also. "So, tell me about this boyfriend of yours? Will I ever get to meet him?" Gee knew immediately that they were entering dangerous territory right now, because with one word, he could pretty much just ruin Frank's life.

"He's not one hundred percent comfortable with his sexuality, yet, well I mean publically, so I don't think he'd be comfortable meeting you just yet, but some day, I'd like that, I think." That was pretty much the best way to bullshit your way through the 'he's actually your best friend and you speak to him everyday and you think he has a girlfriend' truth, right?

"So wait... have actually... had sex?" Now, really, Mikey should have known this was a ridiculous question to ask his twenty five year old brother.

And laughter was the response he received in honour of such stupidity. "Mikey, I'm twenty five, of course I have. With my boyfriend, do you mean? Yeah, we have, I don't exactly want to go into detail, Mikey..." The younger of the two blushed at that. "Have you?"

"No, I.. uhh..." Mikey let out a sigh in response. "I mean, I have a girlfriend, but we haven't got that far yet; we haven't been dating all that long, and I don't exactly know how I feel, because I had like a really weird, almost stalkerish crush on her for months and then suddenly she asks me on a date and then we're dating and kissing and everything, and it just doesn't feel anywhere near as good as I expected it to. She's just Alicia - I mean, I kind of looked at her like some sort of netball playing goddess before, but now, she's just Alicia, and I sound shallow, but that's just that."

"So do you like someone else?" His brother asked, guessing just where Mikey was going; such thoughts wouldn't have been planted inside his head without a better alternative.

"No, I, No... no, of course not."

"Bullshit, Mikey Way. We both know it is." Gee rolled his eyes for added effect, not that it was needed with words such as the ones leaving his lips.

"Okay...." He paused for what seemed like an age before continuing, his eyes drifting elsewhere, "there's this boy."

-

"Frank..." The two hadn't exchanged a word since what had been nothing but a bad idea had slipped from Frank's lips, the silence giving the shorter of the two no option but to turn away and run, run away from his problems like nothing had been said and with the hope that perhaps that he could suffocate himself under his duvet before Ray even had the chance to tell Mikey just about Frank's dirty little secret, that never even stood a chance of keeping.

But with Frank slumped down against his front door; locked behind him and Ray banging on the front, he could just do nothing but cry. He fucking sobbed; he cried like he'd just been broken up with or something, which even the thought of what he'd just said resulting in something like that, sending his head further into some kind of spinning oblivion where all he saw were shapes and sickening images distorted into hellish shapes.

And silence.

Fuck, silence.

He'd given up; Frank knew he would.

Well he hadn't given up entirely, but on Frank, yes. He'd probably just popped down the street go and blab all this fucking shit to Mikey whilst Frank worked on killing himself in the next thirty seconds or so, which seemed utterly preposterous, but most likely doable, if Frank even had the effort that was.

He just didn't want to move, just lie here forever, and wait until someone punched him, making bets with himself on who it would be first.

Mikey, he reckoned, Mikey would probably all too eager to smash his features into his face so hard that that his face switched into concave.

"Frank!" 

He jumped at that; the voice coming from inside, and right now he would prefer to die from some kind of burglar than face anyone he knew, but of course, as luck would have it, it wasn't exactly often that burglars referred to the residents of the house by name.

"Look, we need to talk... I... I reacted badly... I didn't know how to react, I don't know how to react." His eyes came into focus upon the unmistakeable hair of none other than Ray Toro stood before him, and really, he wouldn't be all that concerned if he were hallucinating right now. "You left the backdoor open... or your mum did... or something..."

Frank shook his head, swallowing hard as he came to realise just how fucked up a face so tear stained and swollen as his would look right now, but for once, even for someone as gay as him, his appearance was the least of his worries, and the best friend that knew a terrible secret stood before him being the most.

"You're going to tell Mikey." By now it wasn't even a question; Frank had just come to accept the fact, biting down on his bottom lip, pressing the lip ring into his flesh in the hopes that it'd start bleeding or something and then Ray could go all maternal and fuss over that instead of Gerard fucking Way.

"No..." He exhaled, almost ashamed to say so, but sincere in his words, not that Ray ever wasn't. "I'm just shocked and Frank this is a difficult situation-"

"I know." Frank knew this the moment he connected Gee and Gerard, and even so continued to date him, and really, by now, he reckoned he was too infatuated with Mikey's brother in a skirt to ever stop for anything, even a fist to the face, courtesy of Mikey Way himself.

"I knew that the moment I fell for a twenty five year old cross dresser, let alone him being Mikey's brother... that was just a complication, I guess. I didn't actively seek out the most awkward person for me to date ever, you know. We met at a party - he happened to be Mikey's brother, and I found that out later." Frank pushed the words through with sincerity, the need for the truth overruling the pathetic tears making their way down his face.

"Mikey's going to find out eventually is all I'm saying."

"I know." He nodded, because he did, and he hated that fact. "But it doesn't have to be today and it doesn't have to be now."

"Frank, you're dating a twenty five year old dude who wears skirts..." Ray shook his head before bursting out in a fit of laughter that Frank really was not expecting. "You go to Catholic school."

"I'm not Catholic though." Frank added, to Ray, who for not being an asshole, was actually quite religious. "I stopped being Catholic the moment I knew about all that anti-gay shit."

"Mikey takes that part of the bible too seriously." Ray agreed with a nod.

"It's all his parents have ever told him though, you know, that's practically all they talk about, like it's just a church sermon reeling off a list of sins..." And yet, Frank still never quite felt sorry for Mikey.

"How do you even know this...?"

"Gee - Gerard, his brother, my boyfriend. It's kind of weird calling him Gerard, everyone calls him Gee..." He admitted, shivering as the name never quite managed to fit right on his tongue.

"Wait, so his parents kicked him out? Where does he even live now?" Ray asked, his face donning a look of confusion.

"With friends. The party I met him at was there." He explained with a sigh, hating how his parents had practically disowned him without regard for reason - it was ridiculous, and it was just sickening how they could do that to their own son of all people. "His parents just disowned him though, that’s fucked up. All this homophobia shit is messed up, man."

"I know." And with that smile, for once it felt like he actually understood.

Frank’s phone broke the epiphany of understanding with a buzz and a text from none other than Pete Wentz, world-renowned cockblock. It was the contents however that was what was really shocking.

frank help. i just kissed patrick

-

"Pete, Pete, Pete, Pete- Pete... Pete..." Patrick burst out his best friend's name like a broken record, stuck on a loop of the same thing for eternity, his head not quite able to process or even rationalise what had just happened and as to how Pete Wentz's lips had fell upon his, and out of choice also.

"Patrick, I... fuck... I..." He ran one hand back through his hair as his best friend shook, stepping away from the boy that had just kissed him in a whir of unexpected romance and perhaps misinterpreted, but in no way regretted emotions between them. "I... I... did not mean to do that, fuck, I've messed everything up, haven't I?"

"Why... why did you kiss me?" He ignored his best friend's fumbled, bullshit excuses and apologies, littered with curses like kisses scrawled over a birthday card by a small child.

"Because...." Pete broke down shaking his head, looking up at the boy he'd just fucked everything up with, sat there with no explanation as to how he'd could fix things; he'd just messed everything up today - first punching Frank, and now this. "Because...." 

Pete had no explanation - it just felt right.

He didn't know how and he didn't know why; it just kind of clicked like a natural course of action, like what he was programmed to do, and it felt right - the actual kissing, also. That felt good, better than with Gabe- fuck, Gabe.

Pete awoke to the realisation that he was simply nothing more than a manwhore, and the proud owner of now, no friends at all.

Patrick was the only person who stuck with him no matter what and now he'd messed that up as well. He met eyes with the startled, ginger haired boy in front of him; his face begging without words, but Patrick just stood there in shock, life a deer in the headlights, and Pete felt his heartbeat slowing as his organs seizing up, because this was what dying felt like.

"You can't just do things, Pete!" Patrick screamed out of nowhere; his voice hoarse and raw - fighting back tears that were already steaming up his glasses and reddening the rims of his eyes. "Other people have feelings too." He spat his words back at his best friend in a manner almost uncharacteristic for Patrick. "What are you going to tell Gabe? I'm not some fucking affair - I'm not some point to prove, I'm not your gay fling... grow up, Pete."

Because despite how he cared for the boy who'd just kissed him, and how much he'd dreamed of a moment like this, Patrick knew that what had just occurred was nothing more than nightmare material, because it didn't feel right - he felt used, he felt like trash, like nothing, all part of Pete's love games, as he attempted to deal with his big gay crush on Mikey Way, in quite possibly the worst way possible.

-

Frank found himself sat on Pete's bed - babysitting duty, almost; tentatively hugging the crying boy, who sat rocking back and forth on his bed in a manner, which Frank couldn't help but be concerned about. His eyeliner was streaming down his cheeks, painting his whole face in a messy, watercolour streaked grey-black that appeared almost theatrical in manner, but as Pete knew all too well, the hurt he felt inside was nothing but all too real.

"I kissed him!" he exclaimed to the walls around him for the hundredth time, leaving a slightly out of his depth Frank to place an awkward yet sympathetic arm around Pete, squeezing his shoulders and wondering just when the waterfall of tears would even come to pass, if ever. "Why the fuck did I do that?"

"Maybe you like him?" Frank offered what was a stupid answer to a rhetorical question, using his words as nothing more than a means to pass the time, knowing all too well by now, that calming Pete was all too out of his depth, and the only person that could - Patrick - hated Pete's guts right now.

"No, I don't think I do... I don't know... I... he's just a friend, but I fell for entirely the wrong person, did I? I fucking had to!" He slammed his fist into the wall, his knuckles scarring as blood trickled from the ruptures in his skin.

"What's wrong with Gabe? It doesn't matter what people say, you two look happy-" Frank didn't particularly like Gabe, but he pushed that aside for Pete's sake, however his opinion on Gabe Saporta never had the opportunity to be voiced, Pete interrupting Frank's words before the boy could finish his sentence.

"I didn't fucking fall for Gabe!" He cried out, standing up off the bed, and making his way over to the window, unable to say this to Frank's face, but knowing it had to be said, he continued, his face against the wall, where he could live without Frank, perhaps the only guy that vaguely tolerated him right now's, reaction. "That would make things fucking perfect, because, that'd be great and easy - he's my boyfriend, but.... I'm shallow as fuck.... I dated him to get back at Mikey, after he got with Alicia."

"Not everything's about Mikey, I promise you." Frank let a chuckle pass his lips at this point, perhaps out of place, but he couldn't quite stop himself. "Mikey's an asshole and his opinions and life shouldn't concern you or your love life for that matter."

"Yeah, I know they fucking shouldn't, but people shouldn't be homophobic, people shouldn't be murdered, but it happens - 'shouldn't' means nothing, Frank." He buried his words in sobs, the secret bound to his tongue fiery and eager to brace itself for the real world and the horrors it could offer. "Because Mikey just is."

"He-"

"I fell for Mikey, Frank." He turned around at that point, his eyes settling upon Frank's as he made the worst decision of his life. "Don't even bother calling me a fucking idiot, because I reckon by now I've already figured out that I am."

Silence.

Nothing.

Stunned silence, lingering until Pete couldn't hold his breath any longer and stormed out - his destination, anywhere but here.

-

Gee was sat on the end of the bed in Lindsey's spare room, his eyes fixated upon the window and the world that lay outside, and the silence in the room and the cell phone held loosely in his hand with three- four, now, ignored texts from Mikey.

The two of them had ended their meeting okay, and they'd been friends for a while - a brief pocket of time, but things weren't ever quite as fairy-tale enough as the twenty five year old would ever like them to be, because Mikey always had to go back to his parents and he always had to go back and hide himself away in Lindsey's home; still to afraid to face the man he lived with, and had taken advantage of him in a manner that perhaps, was nothing but unexpected.

He just couldn't think of or speak to Mikey right now - the time wasn't right, because he had tried far too hard to fit in with his family again today, and now he needed to lose himself in liquor and Marlboro, however, unlike Bert, Lindsey wasn't all that supportive of the first option, telling Gee that the worst thing he could do right now was get drunk, and misusing the word 'literally' in the process, and Gee was too tired of people to correct her, sulking off into the spare room and opening his packet of smokes only to realise he had left his lighter in the other room, unable to gather the motivation to fetch thing.

So, he just sat there; eyes fixated upon the window and what his world, what his life could have been like, and how he'd never be in this situation if he simply liked girls.

And it was stupid - stupid to even think, that if he had been sneaking off to kiss girls and not guys, then perhaps he would even be at university right now, and perhaps his life would have resembled the typical American dream with the overpriced suit and semi detached house lost in an overly Catholic town of Suburbia, but that wasn't what he wanted.

Gee never really felt like he'd at all stopped being a teenager, even at the age of twenty five. Perhaps that was why he was fucking one.

But with Frank it was always more than just fucking - anyone knew that, even the stupidest brain cells locked away in the twenty five year old's head - the brain cells that told him to go back to Bert, and that he didn't deserve to waste Lindsey's time like this, but thing was, the longer he left them, the more they grew, and the more he began to believe them.

A knock upon the door he hadn't even bothered to close properly sprung him free from his thoughts and he spun his glance to see the awkward smile of Frank Iero - stood, drenched and in hoodie, now curly strands of dyed black hair crawling onto his porcelain skin from under the soaked black hoodie.

He just smiled at Gee, until his boyfriend smiled back at him, and then the seventeen year old opened the door, letting himself in and closing the thing fully behind him, letting Gee take notice of the lighter in his hand - that Frank had been bothered to collect from the other room where Gee had left it, perhaps along with his sanity.

"Hey." Frank breathed out, his voice thick and kind of heavy - his words more of a sigh than actual annunciated communication, because right now, just the fact that both of them were here was enough to override the actual need for any conversation. "Get me a cigarette and I'll give you the lighter." His words however needed to be presence in demand for his nicotine addiction.

Gee just grinned - grinned like he was truly happy and hadn't been in a long time, and really he had had an awful day - perhaps not awful but certainly trying, and even from the saddened glint in the corner of those usually bright hazel eyes, Frank picked up on that, sitting down on the spare bed beside his boyfriend, almost laughing aloud at the fact that the mattress actually bounced a little as it adjusted to his weight - Gee's own mattress, old and broken, barely even could be moved from the bed frame, like it had faded away and died there, let alone, bouncing in contact as someone sat down.

The twenty five year old passed him the packet of Marlboro without the needs for words to convey his emotions as the seventeen year old first pulled out a cigarette for his tired eyed boyfriend, with the smile that wasn't quite truthful in his emotions.

He placed the cigarette between Gee's lips, lighting it with the lighter Lindsey had given him as he made his way here - she'd texted him, something about Gee going all quiet again, and honestly Frank reckoned she was just terrified they'd have a repeat of how he was after it first happened again, but Gee wasn't like that; he was just kind of exhausted today, and that something else entirely had happened to him - something Frank would perhaps even have to consider using functional sentences to decipher.

He lit his own cigarette after his boyfriend's, passing the pocket back to him, knowing that today, Gee was more in need of the four remaining in the little white and red box than he was, unhealthy nicotine addictions aside in honour of Gee fucking Way.

"What's happened, huh?" Frank asked, his words nothing but vague as he pondered upon the correct way in which to approach the sad look in the corner of his boyfriend's eyes without explaining that Lindsey had called him over in fear of Gee falling back into some sort of paralysed state once more.

"You're wet - it's raining." Gee pointed out what even a small child could read off Frank's soaked boy, a small smile tugging at his lips - confused, yet complacent. "Why did you come here in the rain?"

"Because, you're more fucking important to me than a little water ever was." And Frank meant it. "What happened today?"

"I went to see my parents again, and it was of course a stupid decision, but Mikey and I talked a bit, and it was almost like he understood for once - I doubt it will last though." Gee let out his words with a sigh as he took a drag of his cigarette.

"Mikey's kind of an asshole." Frank let out a sigh as what was nothing but the truth passed his lips.

"Kind of?" Gee let out a chuckle, accompanied with raised eyebrows, and a sadness now faded away and non existent in his eyes.

"I didn't have a particularly easy day either. I got punched in the face by Pete Wentz and then told him to fuck off, nearly coming out in front of all my 'friends' in the process, before running off, Ray chasing after me, and Ray knows I'm gay, but then I just kind of broke down and he just wouldn't leave me alone without an explanation, and I eventually- I told him about you..." Frank choked his words out, turning his gaze to his boyfriend, a little in fear of the boy's reaction.

"Fuck. Ray Toro knows who I am, Frank."

"I know. I know he does, but he understands, I guess. He's not going to tell Mikey." Frank had to trust his life in Ray's words right now. "He promised."

"Don't worry about Mikey - he's got quite the secret too." Gee shook his head, a small, almost pathetic smile tugging at his lips as he fought with his morals in a battle of telling Frank. "Brotherly secret though."

"You don't trust me?" Frank raised one eyebrow, almost offended.

"I'm stressed, asshole."

"How about I de-stress your asshole?"

"Oh, I'm all for that."

And then there was that stupid, enormous grin, but finally with no hint of sadness anywhere on that ghostly pale face that told Frank everything about his boyfriend's social life, or lack of it, and reluctance to leave the house, but none of that mattered, because he was happy. 

-


	14. I Would Go Fuck Myself, But You Beat Me To It

"Kiss me." Gee uttered, eyes all open wide and innocent, lashes dark with smudges of mascara that are slowly fading down into his snow white skin, and Frank reckoned he looked like some sort of pageant queen like that, perhaps all he needed was some sort of fucking feather boa, not that Frank would want his boyfriend in anymore clothes right now - that would be nothing but counter productive, of course.

"What's the magic word?" Frank teased, a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips as his boyfriend pulled Frank closer, meeting his eyes and everything was magic and sparks, and nothing else quite seemed to matter, and Frank didn't even feel embarrassed about the possibility of fucking Gee when Lindsey was just in the other room.

"Asshole." Gee muttered, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend, wondering just how on earth he'd ended up here, and of course, never regretting a single thing.

"Not quite right, I was going for please, but-" Frank didn't quite get the chance to finish before Gee crashed their lips together, pushing Frank back down onto the bed with the impact, and the seventeen year old couldn't help but smile into the kiss before reciprocating and missing the lipgloss taste on Gee's now natural lips.

"Did I ever tell you that you're perfect?" Gee mumbled out as they pulled away and lay beside Frank in bed, their pinkie fingers linked, leaving Gee feeling like a fifteen year old girl, and Frank trying his best not to embarrass himself with the blush that was clinging to his cheeks like some kind of toxic, karma ridden, wildfire.

"Shut up, I'm far from perfect, I tell you." Frank nuzzled his face into Gee's side; blush insistent upon refusing to leave his cheeks. "You, on the other hand, that is surely a different matter."

"Don't be a hypocrite, Frankie, darling." He uttered. The pitch of his voice rising in an amusingly feminine manner as he spoke, and Frank didn't even try to suppress the giggle that begged for escape from his lips.

"Whatever." He rolled his eyes, smirking shamelessly as he moved to sat on Gee's hips, grinning wildly at the gasp his boyfriend let out as Frank chose to press himself down dangerously close to his crotch.

"Jesus...." Gee exclaimed as Frank began to grind down a little. "What was all this about de-stressing my asshole?" He brought back Frank's words from earlier with a smile, gracing his lips in a manner that Frank simply could not say no to.

"Something you'll have to earn, Gee." Frank reckoned he enjoyed teasing his boyfriend all too much, but he reckoned he enjoyed fucking him so much more, but Gee would indeed have to see just how patient he could be. "You gonna be good, huh?"

"How about you stop being such a goddamn tease, huh?" Gee offered a suggestion, but he knew Frank wouldn't be all that inclined to listen to him, unless... unless, hmm...

And before Frank could recognise what was happening, Gee was pushing Frank off his hips and making his way over to his boyfriend, the two of them kind of half sat down, half kneeling next to each other as the seventeen year old watched all wide eyes as Gee ran his hands up under the Frank's shirt, the cold touch against shine letting shameless little moans trail from Frank's lips, littered with perfect construed obscenities, powering Gee's hands on up Frank's skin, ridding him of his shirt, and discarding it upon the floor of Lindsey's spare room, leaving the nineteen year old shirtless, and smirking down at his boyfriend, as he mimicked Gee's action, leaving the two of them shirtless, and intentions of the night before them out in the open.

It was as Gee ran his hands down, palming at what was now a bulge in Frank's jeans, considering just how long he would tease him, before putting his lips to Frank's dick, but everything seemed to stop all of sudden: slow motion as Frank gripped Gee's sides a little too tightly, pulling him up and running his eyes down his boyfriend's figure, and it was only then did Gee let his gaze follow Frank's, his eyes meeting the marks and bruises littered across his hips - the work of none other than Bert McCracken.

"He did that to you, didn't he?" Frank spat out, fuelled with anger and hatred for the guy that had done such a horrible thing to his boyfriend, and he swore that the urge to kill that guy was getting all the more tempting by the second.

Gee could only nod in response, biting his lip, nervously awaiting Frank's response.

"You don't deserve that, okay?" Frank whispered his words into the crook of Gee's neck as he wrapped his arms around him, and it was then that the twenty five year old's heart seemed to spark back into life as he considered how on earth he'd ever gotten this lucky, and what on earth he'd done to deserve someone like Frank.

"I love you so fucking much." Gee whispered against Frank's skin, a smile pulling at his lips as he felt his boyfriend's hands making their way up his back and up into the messy, dark locks of his hair, and his stomach didn't even have time to release its newest horde of butterflies before Frank's lips were on his once again, and right now, he really felt like he could fly.

It seemed however, that the connection of their lips provided no distraction for Frank's hands, making their way down Gee's torso, perhaps lingering teasingly for just a little longer than necessary over his nipples, before reaching his waistline, ignoring the marks that asshole had made, and going for Gee's zipper, laughing at how unaccustomed Frank was to his boyfriend wearing something that wasn't a skirt.

Gee pulled away with a moan, collapsing back against the mattress, his knees up in the air and his legs spread as Frank pushed down against his bulge, pulling his zipper down and then his jeans, discarding them on Lindsey's floor with a continued disregard for what she'd hear of what they were about to do.

And before Gee could even think in anything but fragmented moans, and a smile to grace his lips, Frank's lips were at his tip, and Frank was just about to melt on the spot with those beautiful little, deer in the headlights esque eyes with which Gee met his gaze - there was no doubt in Frank's mind, that Gee was absolutely beautiful.

-

Pete found himself sat in that park again, and although his body was there, his mind was most certainly a million miles away, his mind backtracking through every bad decision he'd ever made, and how admitting the truth to Frank was most definitely his worst decision by far, because right now, he knew there wasn't a doubt in the fact that Frank was going to go straight to Mikey and tell him everything he had said; he should have known Frank valued his friendship with Mikey more than he did with him.

But Pete was wrong, because he didn't; right now Frank wondered if he valued his friendship with Mikey for anything, because really, he'd simply been nothing more than an asshole.

Another thing that Pete found himself being wrong about was being alone, and such a fact was certified as another boy sat down beside him and Pete could only pull his gaze to meet the boy's with widened eyes at the boy's tear stained face that was badly hidden behind a fringe.

"M-Mikey..." The word came out like a stutter, almost as if Pete was nothing but afraid to utter it, his gaze frozen in shock at the boy in front of him.

"Hey..." Mikey pulled his lips into a weak smile in response, the tears upon his cheeks affirming that he was in no way happy, but somehow, for some reason, he was making an effort, and he was making an effort for Pete Wentz. "I'm sorry." He pulled out his next words all haphazard and fractured like he didn't quite trust himself not to mess things up again, as he had all too often before.

"Sorry?" Pete found himself choking over the words that Mikey had uttered, their eyes connecting in a manner that he wanted to slap himself over, because no, it just wasn't like that, and he was stupid to even consider the possibility. 

"I've been an asshole." Mikey admitted what just about the entire world had affirmed as the truth, and Pete tried his best not to utter back some kind of sarcastic comment and fuck things up all over again, but somehow, God had allowed him to manage it.

"It's okay."

And then it was just silence and smiles as neither of the two quite dared to ask the other just what they were doing here and why, mostly for fear of the 'and what about you?' that would be sure to follow, because that was just a question neither felt like they could answer.

"I thought you hated me." Pete didn't quite intend to let the words pass as anything more than a thought, but it seemed like this was a topic that God found himself disagreeing on, and Mikey seemed startled by the certainty with which his words were brought into existence.

"I'm sorry." Mikey repeated, his eyes falling to the ground and almost wishing himself away but from the moment he saw Pete sat out here, he just couldn't leave him there: he owed him an apology, after all. But even as he now as he had given Pete that apology, he'd just quite bring himself to walk away, because their air between them was all so obviously stale and their was a terrible silence that neither of them could quite bring themselves to fill.

"My parents shouted at me and threatened to kick me out because I stood up for my brother..." Mikey offered an answer without a question, but it was the question he knew was stuck at the front of Pete's mind, but he just wasn't quite brave enough to speak it aloud. "That's why I'm crying: I know you're wondering."

"Your parents are fucking assholes." Pete exclaimed, stopping himself as he soon realised that he stepped out of line a little an that Mikey and him were not friends. "I'm sorry- I..."

"Yeah, they are." Mikey finished with a smile; he wanted Pete to accept him and he wanted the two of them to be okay, but he couldn't blame Pete for not feeling the same, especially after all he'd said and done to the poor guy. "Sometimes I wish I could just leave like he did, because he's twenty five and he lives with his friends, and I'm stuck here in a world I just can't escape."

"I know how you feel." Pete nodded as he spoke, thinking of his parents and how far they expected him to go in life, when all he wanted to be in was some shitty punk band and play bass and perhaps make Mikey Way smile some time, and perhaps in his wildest dreams, kiss him too.

"And then you have this perfect idea of reality, but it just doesn't happen, and sometimes you feel like it's you, because you're doing nothing, but when you think about it, you realise that there's nothing you could do about it, and that everything is just hopeless, because reality and what you want is just worlds away."

"Not necessarily." Pete added, raised eyebrows and looking at Mikey like he most definitely didn't want to kiss him and that he most definitely wasn't overjoyed that Frank hadn't been able to find him to tell him everything yet.

"What do you mean?" Mikey asked with little spurts of nervous laughter as he tried his best not to stare at the boy next to him.

"I want to play bass in a band some day, I reckon that if I work hard enough, if I actually find people to be in my band, that something like that could work some day." He passed Mikey Way a smile that didn't read 'if I'm in a band please be my groupie'.

"I don't know what I want to do with my life... I'm not good at anything apart from being an asshole and fucking things up." Mikey admitted, meeting Pete’s eyes as he spoke. "Again, I'm sorry."

"Stop saying it - I told you it's okay. They're just words, you know, actions always speak louder than words, Mikey." He paused, all heavy heart and breath he could quite get into his lungs. "If you're going to say something you have to actually do it."

"Yeah, actions do speak louder than words."

And Pete swore that right now would be a perfect moment to kiss him, but this was Mikey Way, and he was Pete Wentz, he knew where they stood and who they were, and the reality that this night was nothing more than a one off, so he didn't, just to ensure he'd never have to live in regret of his stupid teenage hormones.

Mikey, however... Mikey wasn't quite so sure.

-

"Fuck... Frankie... please..." His moans came all at once, strung with high pitch and certainly not foreign to the odd profanity, his head pushing back against the pillows at the headboard, the bed shoving into the back wall with a bang to cringe at as Frank thrusted in, eliciting a moan that he wouldn't doubt if the neighbours could hear from here.

Gee's hair was spread out across the white pillows like an inky black mess, strewn with beads of sweat and hot breath as his makeup ran in black smudges down his pretty little face, and Frank definitely couldn't stop now, pushing his boyfriend's raised knees further apart and raisin them to lift them over his shoulders, exposing Gee further as he slammed in hard, smirking and moaning at the way it affected the twenty five year old, spread out and exposed on the sheets for him - it was certainly a wondrous sight, to say the least.

"Please, god, please, just, Frankie, please-" He let out shameless moans as they ignored the slam of the front door as Lindsey made an excuse to get out of her apartment and not force herself to listen to her friends fucking in the guestroom, perhaps Frank even felt a little sorry, but right now, it seemed that consideration for Lindsey was the least of his concerns right now.

And the seventeen year old only thought in degrees of just how explicitly beautiful his boyfriend looked like this, moaning and begging for him, and how nothing else quite seemed to matter but the two of them and the rhythm at which Frank slammed in, Gee's body shaking at the feeling, slamming his arms back against the headboard, swearing and moaning in one as Frank went harder this time, feeling that the both of them were close, and wanting to watch Gee's face as he came: all wide hazel eyes, pretty lashes with smudged mascara, white cheeks heated and fuzzy pink, mouth dropped in an 'o' formation, noises and moans of all calibre released from his lips with an utter disregard for dignity.

"Fu-.... come for me you little bitch!" Frank exclaimed, pushing in with such force that he fell down against Gee, his hands falling into the mattress as he supported himself over his boyfriend and let go at the sight of him, as he screamed, as he screamed out his name, and everything felt like falling and flying at the same time.

"Cumslut." Gee let out a little giggle as Frank fell back onto the bed beside his boyfriend, spent, and seeing stars, white stains on their sheets ignored, left for only teasing comments between the two of them.

"Piss off..." Frank mumbled, burying his face in the pillows, craving a smoke, but not thinking it quite the time as his boyfriend's chest was still stained and messy with his own come.

"You wanna lick up this mess you caused?" Gee grinned, gesturing to the mess on his chest, pulling his hands up to the headboard to support his head as he came to wonder just how he ever got this goddamn lucky.

"Go fuck yourself."

"Beat me to it, though, didn't you?" Gee couldn't help but smirk, grabbing a dark shirt off the floor, using to wipe the mess off his chest, with little regard for whoever would have the misfortune of washing this shit.

"Hey, that's my shirt, asshole!" Frank exclaimed, making a grab for the dark cloth that Gee had reached for on the bedroom floor, before the thought that actually he might not want it back crossed his mind. "Whatever..." He rolled his eyes, running a hand through the messy bed hair Gee had run his fingers through. "Give me a smoke, Gee?"

"Hmm... You've been quite rude to me, you know, Frankie..." He let a smirk toy at the corners of his lips as he opened the packet of cigarettes he'd left on the bedside table, placing one between his lips and lighting it, watching Frank's jealous gaze with nothing more than a smirk. "Suck me off and you can have one."

"We've literally just had sex." Frank exclaimed, rolling his eyes, more annoyed with the fact that he had to work for a smoke in the first place than the kind of work he was being asked to do, because really, this was the kind of thing where the initiative was within itself.

"Fine."

Frank barely caught the packet of Marlboro, it landing awkwardly between his wrists, before he let it drop upon the mattress, placing a cigarette between his lips and lighting it, before throwing the packet back at his boyfriend, and hitting him in the back of the head.

"Bullseye!"

"Asshole." Gee rolled his eyes, putting the fallen contents back into the packet before returning it and the lighter to their original positions on the bedside table, turning back to Frank, cellphone in hand.

"Mikey keeps texting me." He commented, his voice almost void of emotion, his eyes glued firm to the overly bright screen of the device as he contemplated replying, cigarette held at the side of his mouth as he spoke. 

Frank checked his phone, grabbing it from the pocket of his jeans, "Ray's tried to call me twice now- oh, three times, and he’s fucking calling me again right now."

"It's probably important then - answer it." Gee stressed, as if it was the obvious option.

"You're okay with that? I mean, he knows-"

"Of course I am, your friends come before your boyfriend, answer him, asshole."

"If you text your brother back."

"Fine."

Accept.

And Ray's voice: words coming out all at voice and perhaps even loud enough that Gee could hear without the phone even being on loudspeaker, not that Frank would ever trust his asshole of a boyfriend with such a thing.

He glanced across at Gee, fingers hovering over his phone, pressing down on the keys almost gingerly as if replying to his brother was something dangerous, something wit the power to affect his whole life.

Frank could laugh all he wanted; he hadn't seen the messages.

-

"Frank, why haven't you picked up, seriously? It could have been important, and you know what? It is!" Ray knew he came off like some sort of nagging mother, but he continued in his words, knowing them to be important as hell; the shaking figure in the corner of his bedroom certainly confirmed that.

"Ray, I was havingsex, I was kind of preoccupied, you know, but whatever, what's the big dilemma?" Frank brushed it off with an air of casually annunciated words and eyes that watched his boyfriend all too intently, because something was wrong: Gee knew it and Frank knew it too, and from the sound of Ray's voice on the phone, Frank wouldn't be all that surprised if he wasn't also aware of the trouble that had been stricken.

"With him, I presume... Frank..." Ray shook his head as he spoke, glancing over to Mikey in the corner of the room; perhaps he would have emphasised the fact that Frank had just slept with Mikey's brother, that would be if Mikey wasn't the one currently freaking out in Ray's bedroom.

"Not the time, seriously what did you call me for?" Frank grew angry with his curly haired friend that should be thankful that he was down the phone line and not sat beside Frank with their conversation in person, as Frank was really considering slapping him right now.

"Mikey." Frank rolled his eyes, of course; of course it had to be fucking Mikey. "Yeah, he did something stupid and he's kind of having a mental breakdown right now, can you please come help, because seriously, I can't get through to him."

"Why am I always the one who has to sort out people's shit?" Frank couldn't help but cast his mind back to Gee crying and shaking, and Lindsey who'd called Jamia, who'd dragged him to fix his boyfriend, not that he'd minded all that much; he most certainly preferred his boyfriend to school, but with Mikey that wasn't the case, and with the look on Gee's face, things just seemed wrong.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'll come over." Frank hung up.

"Gee-"

"Yeah, I know. Mikey's had a freak-out about his sexuality and blamed me for it, pretty much going back on every apology he gave me. Should've seen it coming: he's an asshole and I'm goddamn stupid, but go on, comfort him, he's your friend more than I'm your boyfriend, because I'm not Gee to you, am I? I'm just Mikey's brother, Mikey fucking Way's brother, and with what his parents are saying, maybe anymore, I'm not even that."

"It's not like that-" Frank begged, because Gee had got it all so fucking wrong and right now they were helpless and drowning and Gee just wouldn't let Frank guide him to shore, to safety, perhaps like he even wanted to drown. And that was messed up.

"Frank, look at it!" Gee tossed his cellphone in his boyfriend's direction. "This shit proves it. There's no way Mikey and I can just be, can just be brothers and it all works out with you in the middle hiding each other from each other. You're either his friend or my boyfriend. Pick one, Frank. Stay or go."

Frank was torn: torn like a door from his hinges, unable to stop the wind further battering it down. He hated this, he hated it all, and he hated the lack of decision for him to make; neither option was good and his head was spinning right off his neck.

"I'm fucking coming back when you've calm down, and we're going to sort this out, okay?" Frank locked eyes with Gee, determined that his boyfriend was wrong, that he could be both, and that they could stay like this in secrecy, in limbo.

"Don't, you've fucking made your choice, Iero."

Gee, however, disagreed, and that hurt like fucking hell.

-

Pete wasn't crying.

Pete wasn't panicking.

Pete wasn't storming out of a boyfriend's house.

Pete wasn't offering a stupid ultimatum.

Pete wasn't dialling twice before he got an answer.

Pete didn't deal with messed up shit like that.

What Pete was however, was high.

Pete was high. As a fucking kite, in fact.

And he didn't care, he didn't fucking care, because all he saw was colours and stars and tablet he didn't know the name or risks of, and he still didn't care, and nothing mattered, especially not Mikey Way and his stupid hormones, because right now, to Pete, that hadn't happened at all, because he was too high to remember, and as stupid as he was to think such a thing, he wanted it to stay that way.

He felt like flying and fucking that gay over there who was not only at least five years older than him, but five years out of his league, and Pete forgot he had a boyfriend, and Pete forgot he had a crush, and Pete forgot that the only place he was falling too was the bathroom floor, because one second he was puking into the toilet bowl, and the next his lips were around some guy's dick and then he was puking up someone else's come into what may or may not have been the same toilet bowl.

Pete just felt back onto the floor like nothing had happened and started mumbling something completely mad about milk and bathtubs, before he passed out, and perhaps that would have been a nice way to end his night of forgetfulness, even if he would forget it when he awoke, but it seemed a certain someone had other ideas.

A slap across the face being those other ideas, and the name of that certain someone being Gabe Saporta.

And if he wasn't already by now, by that slap across the face, Pete was well and truly screwed.

"What the fuck, Pete?" His voice was screechy rage, presented in an almost feminine high pitched tone, and served with a fist on the face on the side: Gabe was pissed, no denying that.

"I... want to fuck.... yes...." Pete mumbled his words out with little understanding as to what his boyfriend had just yelled at him, how pissed off said boyfriend was, or really what was going on here at all. That all stopped at pills, and forgetting, and Mikey Way and the thing that had happened that he'd already forgotten so he couldn't possibly say anything about it, let alone offer Gabe an explanation.

"Who? Pete, who? Because there's this guy outside saying you just sucked him off and I'm like what the fuck that's my boyfriend, and he punches me in the fucking face-" Gabe's words came out faster than Pete's mind could protest, like an angry letter, each character punched with force into a typewriter.

"And then you slap me in the face, and I can barely see anything but shapes and stars and I... I think you're pretty, Gabe, real pretty, and I really want to fuck - can we fuck?" His voice turned into a plead and a beg with a mousy, sweet, innocent tone as accompaniment, and Gabe couldn't fight back the urge to punch his boyfriend square in the fucking face, because right now, he was just an asshole.

"You can go fuck... yourself, because Pete, seriously, we're done- call me when you're fucking sober, and then maybe. But you know what? This isn't a thing that's going to work and you're mediocre at best in bed, so why bother huh?" He rolled his eyes to himself, laughing in a breathy manner as if dating Pete was some sort of stupid fuck up on a comedy show and not part of his life, because Gabe reckoned that if he could walk away, then he could just forget, and he could just pretend.

Everyone needed to forget, and Gabe walked away, whereas Pete took pills until he saw the colours not the objects and couldn't remember a thing about who he was or what he was doing here.

And Gabe called Patrick on the way out, because he wasn't quite heartless, and maybe he still cared a little, but the truth was that he would never care about Pete in an 'I love you' kind of way, perhaps a 'stranger passed out on the bathroom floor of a nightclub' kind of way, but Gabe knew that as he walked out, he and Pete, just didn't know each other anymore.

Because Gabe could forget, whereas Pete would find himself on the same bathroom floor for nights as fucking Mikey Way and that stupid fucking mistake never quite left his head.

-

Patrick was all words and worries and Pete was all wide eyed and drugged up on Advil and definitely in another dimension with the way the floor seemed to not quite work, and the way that Patrick just seemed to turn off like background noise, and the whole fucking place smelt of sushi, and he couldn't quite distinguish whether this was Patrick's bedroom or his.

He went for Patrick's, because he'd never had sushi, and wondered why he even knew what it smelt like, but then again, Patrick Stump didn't exactly look like a stereotypical sushi consumer, but then again Pete wasn't quite sure what a stereotypical sushi consumer looked like, and he wondered if Patrick would stop talking so he could google it.

"...why?" 

The only word Pete heard was that, and Patrick was suddenly looking at him with all attention and wide eyes - answer expecting eyes, and Pete had no answer and his whole world was spinning and he reckoned he was just about to puke.

Pete wasn't wrong.

And Patrick's carpet stunk, but he just looked his best friend right in the eye and gave him an odd smile: he'd found the answer and everything made sense, even if the contents of his stomach was on his best friend's bedroom floor, he didn't mind, even if Patrick did.

"I needed to forget."

And Patrick, for once, didn't care, and reckoned that if he was anyone else in the world, he would not have only just given Pete a black eye, but pushed him out of the window as well, but his mum could deal with it, he guessed.

"You're a mess, Pete." Patrick could utter nothing more than the truth as his best friend sat all doe eyed on his bed with hands fumbling erratically as he muttered something about sushi and his feet twitched, but not really and he smelt of piss and come, and weed.

"He punched me, you know." he added, almost like a small child announcing something he thought the whole world should know.

"Yeah, I know. You've got a black eye - everyone’s gonna know." Patrick tried to put it the best way he could, but honestly, such a feat, was perhaps harder than he'd initially thought, but it seemed that Pete was still far too high to even be offended.

"Fuck. Then I can't forget, and I'll need to do this again, and if Gabe can forget then why can't I? It's not fucking fair, Patrick! I bet you can forget, can't you?" And it was all words and noises: sporadic, breath heavy but at least the room didn't smell of sushi anymore, but it did smell of his own vomit, and Pete didn't know what was worse, or whether he was more than indifferent to anything at all.

"Pete, calm down, please. I have no idea what's happened: Gabe called me, angry at you, telling me where you were and that he wanted nothing to do with you anymore, so I went and picked you up and you passed out in the car, but you're here now and I really can't tell when you've been conscious from, because really, you don't seem to be aware of a single word I say."

"I need to forget what happened." He continued, like Patrick had said nothing at all.

"What happened, Pete?"

And then he smiled, he really smiled.

"I don't know; I can't remember."

-


	15. He'd Rather Not Consider Incest Today If It Was Possible

And at first, he can't breathe.

It's like swimming, like drowning, but there's never a bottom nor a surface, and his lungs never seem to run out of air, but they never seem to stop filling up with water, because this isn't drowning, this isn't swimming, this is just floating, just treading water, because he isn't living, not really, yet he isn't dying, and he's just existing, just breathing, and sometimes not even that.

And then he can, and it's not him, it's not his lungs, it's a hand and it's life support, but he isn't pulled from the water, or it drained away, it's just an oxygen tank, strapped to his back: temporary, but for breathing, but for now, he can.

Perhaps that's enough if he had a constant supply of oxygen tanks and hands to hold, but he doesn't, right now he has nothing, nothing but the temporary life she's given him, because Lindsey's looking at him all concerned, wide eyes and he can say nothing at all, he can't even look her in the eye, he's just there, but not, but really not; his body's there, but his mind's most certainly not, and really he's not all that sure if his mind even exists anymore.

She speaks but it's all noise and no words: no sense, no meaning and he's struggling as the water creeps back in again and he can smell hospital and his eyes are red and puffy and he needs someone that will let him sink for a while, because perhaps Lindsey does care too much, because she never lets him go, she never lets him sink, she always pulls him back up.

He's not used to that, and perhaps he doesn't even like that, but she's made it clear that his preferences upon the matter are of no importance to her as she finally pulls him up and they lock eyes, and he wants to cry, but he can't cry, because she's there, and he's a nervous fuck, and he needs to cry, and now he isn't breathing for real in order to stop himself crying and his head's going all fuzzy and he's choking on his own existence, because he knows.

He knows what he does, and he knows the mess he's made, and he knows of the hate he'll receive and now he's just sitting here waiting, and he'd rather die, but she doesn't know that, she could never understand that.

And Gee was stupid for wanting Bert, but he knows, he knows, that Bert would care, Bert would offer him pills, and it would be fine, because the pills take away the tide, they push it back and even after they've worn off you've had the time to scramble far enough away from shore. Sure, they're not permanent, and you'll never another fix some day, but their better than Lindsey and that disappointed look in her eyes, and Gee knows that for sure, today, he's choked up on enough salt water for his brain to be wired perfectly into stupid decision mode.

"Gee, I know what you said to him." Those were the first words that made it through to Gee: drowning out alone in a sea on another planet, and suddenly all wide eyes and black hole pupils, looking up at Lindsey, and she offered sympathetic glances that meant nothing, and that was all okay, not quite alright, but okay, and perhaps things would fade away right there if he didn't hate the fact he had to respond as well.

"Oh." It's nothing it's really nothing: just a passing thought, a syllable, a barely acceptance response, and Lindsey shot him skeptic glances, but at least it broke the silence.

"Can I ask why?" She grabbed the twenty five year old's hand like he was just a kid, and suddenly everything exploded in a flash of white light, and Gee struggled to remember where he was, because it was like waking up from a dream- a nightmare, as with the white light, the water and the drowning faded away into nothingness, and then the nothingness became reality in the form of Lindsey Ballato's living room floor, and he let his fingers slip from where they were gripped tight upon the sofa, his limbs going limp and aching immediately, blinking as he surveyed his surroundings and struggled to understand just what state he'd been in and how long for.

Lindsey simply held up the near empty plastic ziplock bag on the floor, white dust like snow coating the bottom and sides, yet in minority, and Gee daren't admit his knowledge to the whereabouts of the rest of the snow like poison; he didn't need to though - there was no doubt in that gaze that Lindsey knew.

"Why about what you said to Frank, and why about the cocaine. Take whatever's easiest first." She tried to smile, she tried to be friendly, but it simply wasn't happening with the narrow gaze and panicked look hidden away behind two coats of mascara.

"None of it's fucking easy." His words came out exasperated between sighs, and their eyes only connected for a brief moment, looks speaking all for her, before Gee continued, with reluctance, but he continued nonetheless. "I needed to forget. I needed to stop, because I'd messed up, and it just makes it easier, surely you get that, Lindsey? You'd do whatever makes the pain stop?"

"No, Gee, I don't. I don't get that at all; it's not something you can just make no big deal out of, and I want to get that into your head. Sure, smoke, whatever; it's not the best for you, but it's miles better than this... I... Gee, please, don't do cocaine." She shook her head, standing up, grabbing the ziplock bag from the floor with force and binning it like she meant it, never even turning her head for a glimpse of Gee's reaction.

"I messed things up with Mikey." He admitted: heavy breathing and eyes locked upon the bin that the remainder of the bittersweet white powder had been thrown away into. "I told Frank to pick a side. I was just getting it over with; he'd chose Mikey eventually, and I didn't want to think about how much that would hurt later."

"That was stupid, Gee." She shook her head as she spoke, watching as the twenty five year old, stumbled to his feet. "It's been almost a week now, you gotta talk to him, please. He's called, you know, Jamia's called for him, all Jamia talks to me about, because she's worried about is Frank and how he is after this. You know, you were big for him, you were so goddamn important for him, and you still are. He looks at you like you're perfect and he smiles like nothing in the world is wrong - he's goddamn in love with you and you break his heart because you're freaking out over your brother-" She exhaled, words getting tongue tied and all over her. "And then the crack, fuck, Gee, this is no way to sort this. Call him, please."

"What do I say?" Gee stood all wide eyes and twitching thumbs, biting his lip until bled and not giving a fuck when it did. "Sorry doesn't seem to cover it, and I'm not good for him, I'm messing up his life and he is friendships, and I'm just the fucking problem here. Why are you even letting me stay here, Lindsey? Why?"

"Because you're my friend, Gee, and I care about you. Frank cares about you, and Frank is worried about you, and I don't the only thing I can tell him is that you're wasting your life away on cocaine and regret. How did you even get that shit anyway?"

"Bob."

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she spoke. "I didn't think Bob could even get his hands on cocaine."

"He's a drug dealer-"

"He's a fuck up with a bit of marijuana. He's got no friends, no job, no nothing, he's nothing, and that's exactly what you're on the path to here." She exhaled, stepping over the line and realising far too late. "Sorry."

"Nothing." Gee repeated, looking himself over in the mirror: hair streaky with roots and faded spots of dye, sprawling out in all directions like the unbrushed mess it was, his eyes red from crying and other things, his clothes days old by now and baggy on his frame - he was loosing weight and too much of it. "I'm... I'm just... no, I'm... I wanna... I'm something; I'm someone, surely. But who... that's where I'm stumped. I don't know who I am, not really, not at all. They never let me figure that out at all. I wanted Mikey to have a chance, y'know, but it seems Mikey just wants to be like them, normal, or whatever people call it these days, and... I don't, because even if I don't know a damn about what or who I am... I know it's not that, because I'm not like them."

"No, Gee, you're you." And for the first time, they both smiled. "And I know for a fact that what Frank loves you for: not for anything else, not at all. He loves you for you, and believe me you're a great stinky prat, so I've got to give him credit for that at the very least."

Gee blushed like hell at that, and there was no denying the way he felt about Frank, not at all, but some things, they just didn't work out, did they? "I'll go see him."

And Lindsey was content with the slam of the door behind the twenty five year old, having only pulled his hood up to hide the atrocious state of his hair before stepping outside, content, because unlike the twenty five year old himself, she didn't know where he was headed.

-

"Ryan and I are practically married already, so whatever." Brendon coupled his words with almost hyena esque laughter, mimicked in a similar fashion by Ryan, Pete, Patrick, and Ray; Mikey was off sick today, and somehow it had been declared a day of peace and everyone was getting on very well indeed, and even having lunch together, and they actually had a table in the canteen so it was practically Christmas.

Frank however, Frank was having a staring contest with his shitty school horse penis meat spaghetti lunch and wishing he could die or at the very least stop thinking about Gee for just one goddamn minute, but it seemed life didn't quite work like that; either that or God hated him. Not that the latter was entirely unlikely at all, as Frank was pretty much as far from a picture perfect little Catholic boy as you could get.

"Frank, what's wrong? For serious, we're worried about you?" Ryan perked up, noticing the boy's figure sad and leaned over his meal like the world around him didn't quite exist at all and that nothing was really at all worthwhile.

"Yeah, you've been off all day, Frank, is earth all right?" Ray had noticed too, but was far too polite and respectful of Frank's secrets to butt in without someone else to pose the question that had been bothering him for the past few days now.

And despite the five pairs of eyes now on him, Frank remained in silence.

"It's... it's him, isn't it..?" Pete stuttered to get his words out, unsure as to how Frank would react and just how bad of a situation those words would lead him into, but with the state which Frank was in, he pretty much had to say something, and he reckoned he was the only one who actually knew about him, and from the look in Frank's eyes, he knew it to be nothing more than heartache.

"Who's 'him'?" Brendon asked, confusion painted on his face and naivety practically falling from all of his orifices. "Is this some sort of secret everyone's neglected to tell me again? Like that Ryan liked me."

"That was hardly a secret, dumbass." Ryan nudged him playfully, his eyes however, fixated upon Frank, still having made little to no acknowledgement of the fact that anything had been said at all.

"Pete, shut up. It's a secret, and you know that." Ray spoke up, catching Pete's gaze and wondering what on earth had possessed Frank in order for him to actually trust Pete with a secret like this.

"Oh so you know as well-" Brendon interrupted, the tone at which his words came out with never quite catching up with him as he came off all too sarcastic and horribly aggressive and with no apology with which to put it right.

"It doesn't matter." Frank finally spoke, grabbing everyone's attention, looking up at the five pairs of eyes staring blankly at him once more. "I'm just overreacting. It really doesn't matter."

Thankfully, before anyone could quite get another word in with which to ultimately disagree with Frank, Jamia walked over to their table: that typical 'your boyfriend's done something fucking stupid again' look in here eyes that sent Frank's stomach into a series of immediate and unstoppable somersaults.

"Frank, we need to talk." She ignored the others sat at the table, addressing Frank without even so much as a hello to the others. "You can guess what it's about."

"Good news or bad news?" Frank let out a heavy sigh, practically pounding his lungs down into his diaphragm as he did so, getting up from the table, readying to follow Jamia out of school and to Lindsey's place once more, hoping he'd at least get a cigarette on the way, because right now, he really reckoned he deserved one.

"Both." She answered, half smile, half grimace, and then Frank really did not know what to expect.

"This is about that him, isn't it?" Brendon chorused, almost glaring at Jamia accusingly as it seemed the knowledge that he didn’t know a secret seemed to be something he couldn't quite bare. "She knows, of course, doesn't she?"

"Jamia's pretty much my best friend." Frank admitted, freely without the presence of Mikey, yet still cringing a little at the look Ray gave him from the corner of his eyes, because surely that hurt the guy, and as close as Ray and Frank were, he and Jamia were just a close in a whole other way.

"And we're not? I assume from-" Brendon began, only to receive a not quite so friendly shove from his boyfriend, who then proceeded to flash Frank an apologetic glance.

"Brendon, leave him be. He's upset, and it's clearly not our business." Thank god at least Ryan Ross could keep Brendon under control when he needed to be; Mikey Way was far too heterosexual to be able to have such a useless boyfriend, and it was really ruining Frank's life in more ways than anyone could imagine.

"You know, Frank, with all this secrecy, and the fact that you're not even half the time, you just can't help but suspect things, and really, maybe sometimes I think you're just as bad as Mikey." And even as soon as Brendon said it, he knew himself that it was uncalled for, but that was simply nothing that dropped jaws and wide eyed gazes could solve.

"Fine, fucking fine. You want to know what's going on? Okay, fucking good for you." Frank exhaled, Jamia shaking her head like crazy as she sensed just what Frank's irrational responses were going to force him into doing; Frank continued regardless. "My boyfriend just broke up with me, and really not in the fucking best of ways, but I'll let you know I am nothing like Mikey, so don't you fucking dare."

And with that Frank stormed out, leaving Jamia to chase after him with even more pieces of Gerard and Frank's destroyed relationship to pick up and badly tape together in a terrible attempt of fixing; seriously, you had to give her credit for trying, though.

-

"Off sick?" He scoffed, meeting Mikey's eyes with nothing but nonchalant skepticism: bemused, yet not quite caring. "Unimaginative - I have to say." His words came with a smirk as he sat beside the seventeen year old; the two of them sat a top the hill with the trees behind them, Mikey having taken them to his 'special place'.

"Yeah, you usually went for killing off non-existent relatives." Mikey raised his eyebrows as he spoke, a smirk that perhaps shouldn't be there, tugging at the corners of his lips as the words just seemed to tumble out.

"It worked, didn't it?" He raised his eyebrows, unaccepting of Mikey's skepticism towards his approach, and proudly hypocritical of his behaviour just prior.

"Yeah, it did." Mikey shrugged, eyes hitting the floor, writing nonsense into the mud with a stick and basically trying his best to look anywhere but his brother's eyes; they had to talk - they both knew it, yet of course that never made it at all anymore bearable.

"I'm sorry." Gee breathed out words that didn't quite seem to fit the situation, especially since they were coming from his lips and to be received by none other than his brother; things like that just didn't happen. Perhaps Gee wanted to try to make this work, or perhaps it was guilt: even he couldn't tell.

"Mum and Dad just aren't fucking happy, Gee. Especially not when I'm siding with you - that just makes it worse, and sometimes, you know it is just really fucking hard to believe that you're not the problem here." Mikey's words were perhaps a little uncalled for, but the twenty five year old was used to it - especially from his family.

"Did it get better when I left?" He asked with little regard for context, wanting nothing more than a simple yes or no answer, and therefore deeming the question worthy of nothing more than such simplicity.

Mikey looked at him for a few moments: face blank besides the appearance of a perplexed gaze, before he suddenly seemed to jolt back into life, his eyes widening as his features took on almost a puzzled expression, lips parting to utter the answer his brother already knew he would receive. "No."

"See." Gee forced a smile upon his lips: just a little inappropriate in such a situation, but he wore it with pride none the less, and the hope that finally he and Mikey were getting somewhere, because Gee was really doing this for Frank; he didn't want it to be Mikey or him, he wanted it to be both, and Frank wanted that too. "They're the problem."

"Oh here you go again - blaming everyone but yourself." Mikey rolled his eyes, almost cursing himself for even imagining that Gee could possibly act even vaguely civil towards him for even ten minutes. "You don't get that, do you, Gerard? No one's going to make an effort unless you do as well."

"I am making an effort - I didn't come and fucking see you for nothing, did I?" The older of the two brother's exclaimed, his voice bordering shouting right now and really they were just glad that the area was as secluded as Mikey had assured.

"You did a plenty good job of ignoring my texts though!" And that was how they argued, almost like a married couple of some sorts, but that was a really messed up image and Gee reckoned he'd rather not consider incest today if it were at all possible.

Then they just sat in silence for a few moments, because Gee knew his brother was right and indeed had a point here, and he was of course far too stubborn to even consider vocalising such thoughts and realisations.

"I tried to kiss him, you know." Mikey finally chose to broke the silence: his voice quiet, almost as if he dared not speak at all, and their eyes met then; the sad look in Mikey's giving Gee all he needed to know. "I haven't seen him since. We haven't even communicated at all, and I haven't asked anyone about anything and I haven't told anyone and I don't know if he has and I'm so fucking scared of going back to school, because it's Pete and he doesn't just tell one person - he tells everyone, and he'll tell Alicia, my girlfriend and- it was just stupid... I..."

"You cheated on her, huh?" Gee finally spoke again, after watching with raised eyebrows as Mikey broke down a little for a few seconds, speaking only of the blatantly obvious as he very much doubted he could say anything that would at all even dream of positively impacting Mikey's mental state right now.

"Yup." He snapped, his tone almost sarcastic: tears brimming in the corners of his eyes as the skin surrounding them began to redden.

"So who are you going to pick then?" Gee asked the question almost too nonchalantly, almost in utter ignorance of his brother's devastated state, but really the twenty five year old just hated to admit he hadn't the slightest idea as to how he should comfort people when they were upset. "You're going to have to go for either Pete or Alicia in the end, you know..." He spoke; his words directed at the look of confusion Mikey had given him in response to his previous statement.

"I don't know, because Alicia is really hot and popular and I can’t believe that she finally likes me and I don't know, she just makes me feel good about myself - she's kind of like the perfect girlfriend, if you know what I mean?" He paused, catching his brother's gaze.

"Mikey, I'm gay - I have no fucking clue as to what a 'perfect girlfriend' would be like."

"But then... you know, Pete's just something else, and it's so confusing because I've never felt anything like that before and it feels deep down, kind of wrong, yet I... it's sort of addicting, because it feels almost better than anything else, and I... it's all a mess..."

"Now there, I know exactly what you mean." Mikey's eyes widened with delight at his brother's response.

"You do?" He exclaimed, grin almost painting itself upon his face, and really Gee couldn't help but resent the fact that what he was going to say next was most certainly going to smash that grin right to the ground.

"Yeah." He exhaled, gaze hitting the floor: anywhere but Mikey, really. "You're not going to like this, but... that's exactly how I felt when I first met my boyfriend."

And that was what brought Mikey to silence for what felt like hours, but was really perhaps nothing more than a mere five minutes or so, but to be honest, five minutes in utter, awkward silence, is in fact, quite a lot to bear, and Gee found that out the hard way, wondering where on earth anyone would go from here, and just how long it would be before Lindsey had come to realise he'd simply set out to make more shitty decisions and not fix his life at all.

He even soon came to the rather ponderous conclusion that he wasn't in fact doing anything for himself, but really for Frank, and Gee even wondered if that was love at all or not, but then he realised with parents like his, he really didn't have the slightest clue as to what love was or what the word even really meant, let alone, the actual concept.

But whatever it was with Frank, it was most certainly something special, because Gee knew he most certainly wouldn't go to lengths such as these for just anybody, even not for himself, and it hurt his head a little when it came to pondering just quite what that meant. Frank was just Frank, and Gee was just Gee, and whatever was between them was just too special and just so easily temporary to not even have a name placed upon it, and Gee found himself never to be quite okay with that, but perhaps complacency was something else, and perhaps something he'd grow to come to terms with.

However, as unlikely as it might seem, Mikey broke the silence before the older of the two brothers could ponder over his entire existence - Gee reckoned he did get pretty close though.

"So what? Am I gay then? Is that it? What am I supposed to do now? Tell me what to do now, please Gee. Nothing makes sense anymore." He came out with what seemed to be a thousand questions a minute, and Gee wondered if he was even keeping up, because the twenty five year old most certainly wasn't.

"I'd say that if you're going to go around kissing other people, you need to break up with Alicia, because no matter how much of a 'mistake' it was, if the thought to even do such a thing popped into your head, then you don't really like her as much as you like the idea that you do, or what I think in your case is the idea that she likes you."

"So how do I know that I love Pete more than I love Alicia, though, I mean I-" He stumbled over his words, his eyes not quite meeting his brothers: a key signal to the fact that his thoughts were elsewhere entirely.

"Mikey, you're seventeen - you don't love anyone, especially not some fucking cheerleader you've dated for like two weeks tops." Gee was perhaps just a little harsh on his brother, but he really didn't care at this point, because Mikey was rather into the habit of asking for advice he would never accept.

"She's on the netball team-"

"Do you think you're going to give a single fucking shit about that in even a year's time?" Gee exhaled loudly as Mikey looked at him liked he'd just admitted to murder or something. "Look, Mikey, I'm older than you, and I don't think I've ever really been in love, look and I can tell you one thing for sure - nothing that I faced in high school really matters one shit at all anymore."

"Okay, but this matters to me now because it's my whole world right now, so what am I supposed to do, Gee? I mean am I gay or what? I mean, I'm not supposed to like guys- I never wanted to like guys, especially not Pete-"

"Do you think I ever wanted to like guys?" Gee shot back, all on the defensive in seconds, but with reason, even if it made very little sense to Mikey and the naivety that ran through his veins. "Do you think I ever wanted to be picked on? Do you think I ever wanted to be kicked out? Do you think I ever wanted to be disowned?"

"But you... you just kind of embraced it... like, went full homosexual without a care. You didn't even try to hide it." Mikey told him, and Gee really struggled to see Mikey's point here at all, but he could hardly blame anyone but their- Mikey's parents right now.

"How psychologically damaging do you think hiding and masking and hating who you are for years on end is?" The older of the two brothers just looked at the younger, because Gee knew like hell that he was right.

"I don't have a fucking clue who I am? How were you always so sure?"

"I just went with what felt right, Mikey, and that's all I can suggest for you, just ignore every should and every expectation and just do what you want for once."

-

"Where the hell did you go, Gee?" The twenty five year old barely even had the opportunity to close the door behind him before Lindsey's voice erupted against his eardrums and for one painful moment it was like he was a teenager again.

He turned around to see Lindsey stood arms folded in the doorway to the living room, and it was made rather clear that he wasn't moving anyway without an explanation, and he really kind of felt sorry for her future children, because they really weren't pulling any bullshit with her around at all.

"I went to see Mikey, to talk to him, because I never did reply to his texts, and I think we're okay now, but he's going to blame all consequences of his actions on me for the rest of his life, and I think perhaps that's something I'll just have to learn to deal with."

"I told you to go see Frank, do you not even care how upset he's been?" Lindsey could barely get her words out, before Gee interrupted; the whole hallway consumed in tsunami esque energies of anger.

"Do you not even care that I'm not your fucking child, Lindsey? I can make my own decisions and I don't have to be here, you know." He reminded her, and it seemed to sink in as the yelled words settled into silence and bitter glares that each pretended simply not to notice, perhaps just for the ease of ignorant pacifism.

"Yeah, because that went all so well, didn't it?" She spat under her breath, and perhaps Gee would have retaliated, or better just walked back out the door again, if Frank had not pushed through the door behind her and stood in the hallway, looking up at Gee all wide eyed like he couldn't even believe that he really existed, and suddenly it was like that night when they first met all over again, and the heels that were probably still somewhere in Bert's kitchen.

"What the hell did you even say to Mikey?" Frank asked, just a little pissed that Lindsey felt it mandatory that she stand by as witness to this conversation. "He's been weird recently. Not at school today either."

"Neither are you." Gee noted, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"Yeah, that's your fault." Frank spat back, but somehow, again, within instants they were grinning at each other once again, and it was at that time that Lindsey rolled her eyes, giving up and going to the living room where Jamia sat alone rather awkwardly, having accompanied Frank here.

"He likes that guy and it's confusing him, because he did something and he's scared." Gee answered just about as vaguely as he could manage, and Frank shrugged it off, guessing he'd find out sooner or later.

"So do I have to pick between you and him again now?"

"No. I think I made things up with him again, so we're all good- I mean, if you want to be, because I am still so fucking totally in awe of you, I mean, Frank, I just-"

"Shut up." The seventeen year old muttered with a shake of his, a blush crawling up his cheeks like some sort of emotionally messed up spider. "Of course, we're good - I love you, Gee. I also kind of accidentally came out to all my friends except Mikey today."

"Wait what? You have more than one friend?"

"Oh fuck off." Frank rolled his eyes as he spoke, pissed off, yet nothing else ever felt quite as good as even just talking to Gee. "Yeah, I was upset and they kept asking me why and I eventually just screamed that it was to do with my boyfriend before storming off, so yeah, that could very easily go terribly."

"I'm sorry - I didn't ever mean to upset you, Frankie."

"It's okay. We're okay - that's all in the past now, okay?"

Gee just pressed his lips against Frank's: words unable to describe what he felt right now, but he felt that excessive mouth to mouth contact most certainly could, or even if it couldn't, there was certainly no harm in trying.

-


	16. The Passed Out Emo On The Floor

"I can't fucking go to school like this, with what I've said. Surely you'd understand." Frank stood in Lindsey's kitchen: face distressed and half empty coffee cup in hand, his words directed now at Gee, despite it being Lindsey who'd told him to go to school in the first place.

"You're going to have to face them some day, you know that, Frank." Lindsey exhaled, acting utterly maternal as she buttered Gee a piece of toast, the twenty five year old sat at the table: eyes almost blank and fixated upon the back wall and the nothingness it held as he tried his not to give into the white powdered cravings that crawled over his mind like little destructive spiders.

"Not necessarily. I don't have to ever talk to any of them ever again." He mumbled, his face buried in his coffee mug as he leaned back against the wall, defiant upon the fact that he wasn't moving for anything right now, and he was technically still a teenager so he was allowed to be an angsty little shite as much as he wanted, thank you very much.

"Stop acting like you're thirteen, Frank, or I will start to care about this eight year age difference between you." Lindsey rolled her eyes, buttering Gee's toast and putting it on a plate in front of him for him to eat - the twenty five year old only ignored its presence entirely: he didn't even seem to be fully conscience of anyone’s existence right then.

"I'm eighteen in a few months time, you know." He reminded her, perhaps just out of snideness, because it didn't even seem to matter at all, especially not as she took notice of how Gee seemed to be twitching, biting down on his lip so hard it began to bleed.

"You shouldn't have fucking done that shit, Gerard." She snapped, addressing him by his full name in a manner that caused both Gee and Frank to jolt up; Frank in confusion and Gee in what almost seemed to be fear: his eyes meeting Lindsey's with what was almost a whimper, still twitching, and lip now bleeding. "You're craving - I can see that. Anyone can."

"Wait what?" Frank jumped up at that, walking over to where Lindsey had taken the chair beside Gee and standing opposite them, catching Gee's wide eyed and almost vacant gaze, but only momentarily.

Lindsey looked between Frank and Gee with an almost questioning look as she weighed up the pros and cons of letting the truth slip in her mind. "I don't think it's entirely my secret to tell. I sure as hell want to, considering just how much he's pissed me off with this, but believe it or not, I do consider myself a decent human being, I mean it's kinda bad-"

"I pretty much overdosed on cocaine." Gee spat out, drowning out Lindsey's words in his confession and the silence that followed as Frank struggled to even discover what he thought, because right now his mind was nothing but empty as he felt like nothing but curling up and disappearing. "It was just something to do - I mean it was kind of like drowning and I kind of liked that, I guess. It was just forgetting."

"I'm sorry, Gee, I mean... I just-" Frank fell into the chair opposite, burying his face in crossed arms pressed down against the table, and Lindsey was just speechless as Frank started to let out a little, muffled sobs.

At first Gee could just sit there and stare, because this was Frank, and as stupid as it sounded it was almost as if he'd even forgotten that his boyfriend was only seventeen and was just so fucking confused and still some fucking high school wreck, because to him Frank was just cool, and Frank just stole his cigarettes and Frank didn't care that he wore miniskirts, and Frank didn't care, and most certainly Frank didn't cry, but he did.

"Frankie..." Gee finally croaked out, his muscles tensing up as the seventeen year old pulled up his red and swollen gaze to meet his boyfriend's and everything seemed to stop for a good few minutes as Lindsey considered leaving the room and the then fact that she really didn't want them to end up making out on her kitchen table.

"It's just I..." He sighed out, burying his face in his arms once more, before pulling his gaze up to once again hopelessly meet his boyfriend's. "I'm sorry, I fucked you up, I upset you and it's always, it's always just me and someone is going to tell Mikey now and when Mikey's going to find out it's just like why not make a bet as to which one of us is going to get punched in the face first..."

"Look, Frankie, it's not your fault at all, and I promise you I love you so much, and with what's happening with Mikey right now - I've been talking to him a lot recently, I don't think he'll want to punch you in the face for anything more than the fact that I'm his brother, and that seems pretty normal to be honest." Gee reassured him but couldn't help consider for a moment that perhaps neither of them wanted to be normal at all.

"What have you been talking about with him?" Frank jumped to the question instantly, and Gee exhaled in response, leaning back in his chair and glancing over at Lindsey who stood almost awkwardly as if she was supervising, by the door.

"You want privacy?" She asked in assumption, lips forced into a small smirk. "No fucking on the table, okay?"

Gee turned back to face Frank in almost synchronisation with the slamming of the door behind her and sighed, questioning his morals greatly as he considered what he was just about to do, but he couldn't lose Frank for anything, not ever, not again, and it seemed that if that meant sacrificing the trust between him and his brother, then it would just have to be another stupid decision for him to make.

"He... he uhm... likes Pete." Gee admitted, his voice quite and his gaze never meeting Frank's as he began to fidget a little, amusing by now that Frank would know who 'Pete' was, and from the gasp that left his lips, Frank most certainly did.

"He hates Pete." Frank exclaimed, attempting to process what he'd just been told, and it just wouldn't fit - it had to be wrong, surely? "He's dating Alicia. He goes on about Alicia all the fucking time - I should know, I've had to put up with that shit forever: he's not gay, he's homophobic as fuck, I mean-"

"He tried to kiss Pete." Gee interrupted with what was the truth and what he really shouldn't be telling Frank at all and perhaps the truthful realisation pushed Frank down and buried him in what was nothing more than a never-ending silence.

"Well... fuck..."

-

"I don't want to call him a liar, but Frank doesn't exactly seem like the gay type." Brendon mumbled from behind a coke can; their usual group, absent of both Frank and Mikey sat on the steps outside the music block, trying their best not to get stepped on by assholes making their way into their home rooms early.

"Yes but have you ever seen him with a girl like that, ever?" Ryan pointed out, perhaps just a little offended by his boyfriend's stereotypical assumptions, but not quite bothered enough to make a big deal about it.

"Jamia." Brendon offered with two eyebrows raised high, and Ray wanted to speak up like hell, not in fully outing Frank but defending him at the very least, but he found his gaze sternly fixated upon Pete who looked like he was about to burst on the spot with what could only be a secret he should never have been trusted with.

"Jamia's gay too." Patrick spoke up at that moment, stating what everyone knew as the obvious, and after that, Brendon went quiet for a moment, pondering over just how much Frank's sexuality would hurt his special snowflake esque ego.

"But he's absolute besties with Mikey and Mikey's the biggest homophobic asshole, I've ever met." Brendon met Ray's eyes at that moment, considering the fact that he may have stepped over the line there, but only momentarily. "Sorry Ray, but seriously, you've got to agree with me here - that shit just doesn't make sense. Like didn't it surprise you at all."

"Yeah, it surprised me a little-" Ray began, watching as Brendon's mouth open to jump to conclusions before Ray had even finished. "When he first told me." He finished, leaving jaws agape as Brendon continued to be personally offended by the fact that he wasn't informed.

"He told you?" Ryan was the first to exclaim, not out of personal offense but at the fact that Ray had kept this completely quiet.

"He didn't directly tell me - I overheard, but I knew too." Pete piped up amidst the widened gazes and jaws agape. "The whole boyfriend thing is true." He added, just to ensure Brendon wouldn't go down that route next.

"Wait, so who's his boyfriend?" Brendon piped up first, his mind sparking with curiosity at the prospect of another gay guy in this shitty little Catholic town.

"It's a secret." Ray emphasised, his words directed mainly at Pete; he still didn't trust the guy and quite honestly found it ridiculous that he even knew - that was really a terrible decision on Frank's part.

"What's a secret?" Mikey asked, arriving at the worst possible opportunity, leaving everyone to look up at him wide eyed like he'd died or something, and Pete couldn't but blush and bite his lip as Mikey made it obvious in his attempt to sit as far away from the boy whom he'd kissed in 'mistake'.

"Don't tell him-" Pete burst the words from his lips, aiming them directly in Brendon's direction and all too soon before he could possibly come to realise just what Mikey would have deciphered from the snippet of conversation he'd gathered.

"Oh so they all fucking know do they, huh? Pete?" Mikey, as Pete finally came to realise, took his words nothing but the wrong way as he exploded in a mess of angry accusations, leaving the others to stare at one another blankly as they struggled to second guess what was the great secret between Mikey and Pete.

"We were talking about Frank." Ray stepped in, silencing Mikey and protecting whatever secret Pete was keeping simply out of kindness' sake, and maybe just something to kindly blackmail him into telling said secret later.

"Oh... yeah..." Mikey fell into a blush, leaving it known to everyone that this was really not a secret he wanted to be told. "Frank’s not here."

It was then that Patrick slowly began to piece things together, and oh fuck, something had happened between them - he was reluctantly certain of the fact, and Mikey had a girlfriend, and Pete had a boyfriend, and he still had a raging crush on Pete, and whichever way he looked at this situation, no matter which one, everyone was still absolutely fucked.

"Don't tell him." Ray repeated, his gaze drifting between Brendon and Pete as he struggled to keep the secret Frank had let slip on accident, because maybe it was okay for them to know, as no one really seemed to think of him all that differently, but Mikey was most certainly an absolute no go.

"Why not? Don't tell me what?" Mikey directed his words at Ray: angry at him, for the first time, and really it was weird, because he and Ray were close, close as hell, but this just didn't seem to work out quite right.

"It's Frank's secret, Mikey. I'm sorry, I just can't tell you." Ray exhaled, keeping true to his values and his loyalty to Frank; even if it fucked up his and Mikey's friendship in the process, because he knew that the repercussions of Mikey's knowledge of this little secret would just about ruin Frank's life.

"Yeah, like Pete just can't tell you mine." Mikey snapped, continuing not to react in exactly the best of manners, his eyes almost burning through Pete's as he spoke.

"Pete hasn't said anything." Patrick stood up for his best friend, despite the fact he could just about guess what had happened and just how that was slowly pulling his heart into tiny little pieces, and how hard he was trying not to think about having to clear up Pete's mess when he finally talked to him about this, because he would, and only when things had absolutely gone to shit.

"Sure, go let your fucking boyfriend stand up for you, fucking faggot." And with his daily dose of homophobia given, Mikey stormed off to go have about seven panic attacks as he came to the slow and in no way steady realisation that he was in fact, also a faggot.

"Gabe's his fucking boyfriend, you asshole." Brendon shouted after him, rolling his eyes as he struggled to find any explanation as to why anyone was actually friends with Mikey Way at all.

"Uhh... Gabe and I broke up..."

And that was when Patrick's heart snapped right in two as he came to consider the possibility that Pete had broken up with Gabe for Mikey.

-

Mikey was fucking pissed, and for once, perhaps even if it was just this once, with good reason, and that good reason was nothing more than the fact that Pete Wentz was a fucking asshole, and he hated the fact that he had these stupid feelings for him, and he hated the fact that he was just stupid enough to act on them.

And then Mikey reckoned he really was stupid, and most certainly that he didn't want to turn up to English where he was in fact sat beside Pete Wentz, the asshole, himself, and he really reckoned that was something he just couldn't take today, perhaps trying to sneak and hide behind the art block: hide from his troubles, and not just English class, and more importantly, Pete Wentz, that is. Perhaps it wasn't quite the best of ideas.

Mikey had of course been expecting and craving the insanity bringing familiarity of solitude, and he'd been needing this fucking waste dump behind the school as a place to clear his thoughts and try and figure out how the fuck he was actually going to continue existing in Pete's vicinity, and just how he was seriously going to manage it if Pete ever spoke to him, let alone if another encounter, similar to the one already messing with his head to an extreme, occurred - let's just say that then, he'd truly be screwed.

As luck would have it however, Mikey most certainly did not get solitude, and he most certainly did not get peace and time alone with his thoughts, because the space behind the art block really was not just space - it wasn't empty, well it wasn't populated, there was just one little fucking problem.

One little fucking Pete Wentz shaped problem sat upon the floor, head leant back against the brick wall of the art block and eyes fixated upon the sky above, and from how his pupils dilated Mikey could only expect the worst, and the little bag of white dust beside him only confirmed the fact that Pete was getting high and fucking himself up behind the art block, and Mikey was just frozen: watching him, letting him.

Pete was too messed up to have noticed him yet and Mikey knew all too well that there would only be two possible outcomes to this situation: two possible choices for him to make. And as much as his arrogant demeanour may not suggest, he hated that - he hated being in charge and having to make the decisions that would impact people, because deep down, Mikey did care.

Even about Pete Wentz, especially about Pete Wentz.

He could leave him here; he could ensure that Pete never even knew he was there and he sulk off and waste away English class in the toilets or something, but he knew someone else would eventually find Pete here like this, and the chances were that this other lucky individual may not care quite so much about the little emo shit as Mikey did, even if reluctantly so.

And so Mikey ignored his fears from before and let himself make another terrible decision, potentially putting him in another mind haunting situation, but perhaps he didn't care all that much - as long as Pete was alright, maybe this would all be worth it, or maybe he'd turn up to Geography next with a black eye? Who knows? It's like a lucky dip.

"Pete?" He called out the boy's name as he sat down beside him; the boy only turned his head as he sensed the presence beside him, and in turn, his eyes almost seeming to pop right out of their sockets as he came to recognise that the boy who had joined him in sitting behind the art block and wasting his life away, was none other than Mikey Way: the boy whom he had been trying to avoid in the process.

Really, what Pete had been doing here was forgetting - all over again, because it didn't seem that his means of artificially created memory loss were only temporarily affective, and that just wouldn't do, because the affects of the mistake they'd made together was most certainly permanently affective.

"You hate me." Pete chose a wonderfully kind statement with which to greet the boy donning white framed glasses and a grey beanie pulled down over his head, so pieces of blonde/brown hair poked out at odd angles, almost like straw; Pete thought he look cute, though, yet even in a state such as this, Pete still knew well enough never to tell Mikey that, and that was exactly why he needed to keep forgetting.

"Sometimes, yeah." Mikey admitted, sighing out as he found his gaze rolling up to the sky as he once again found himself at a loss for words at the hands of Pete Wentz. "You're fucking yourself up out here. Why?"

"Why not?" Pete countered, watching with wide eyes as Mikey snatched the bag containing Pete's toxin of choice, stuffing it in his pocket and praying to every God there was that he remembered to discreetly throw it in the trash somewhere, and before he got home too, because he really doubt that his Catholic mother would take kindly to finding a little bag of cocaine in his jeans' pocket; he didn't even have Gerard to blame it on anymore.

"Because you matter, Pete." And Mikey hated being sentimental, but Mikey hated Pete Wentz, so he guessed the two kind of balanced each other out, because really, talking to Pete like this, wasn't at all half bad.

"I just need to forget, Mikey - it's nothin', no addiction or anything." He promised him, pupils growing at an alarming rate, and Mikey really just didn't know what to do about Pete like there and whether or not he was actually a danger to himself right now or anything. Gee would know, though: Mikey knew that.

"What are you trying to forget?" Mikey found himself asking, and for what reason, he just couldn't quite figure out, but really he just cared and perhaps that wasn't quite so much of a problem as he had initially thought.

"Us."

Maybe Mikey was wrong.

-

Maybe Mikey was wrong about a lot of things, but he had never been wrong about anything anymore than he had been right now, because he even knew himself right from the get go that this was an absolutely sickeningly terrible idea, but he needed to get Pete out of there, and he needed to protect Pete, because he couldn't just leave him, and despite what the boy had said, he couldn't just not care.

He'd practically dragged the still high as fuck boy out of the school via the back gate and now the two of them found themselves sat on a park bench a few streets down and Mikey could only let himself grow with concern as he found it to be apparent that Pete hadn't even seemed to take notice of the fact that he wasn't wasting away behind the art block anymore, and that it had indeed been Mikey Way that had dragged him away and onto a park bench that was still damp enough to make Mikey glad he was wearing dark trousers today so he could avoid stains of an awkward nature.

The younger brother found himself texting his older brother but of course to no avail; Gee hadn't answered a single one of his texts and he'd texted him five times by now: each text growing furthermore frantic as he grew worried about Pete further, because seriously, he knew jackshit about this kind of thing, and for the first time in his life, Mikey really wished he could have just been a little more like his brother, and even then perhaps he wouldn't be in such a mess with Pete: feelings between them were obvious, but anything beyond that really wasn't.

"Pete, please... can you even hear me?" Mikey exhaled, his eyes growing nervous as his locked his gaze with the boy beside him; Pete however seemed in no hurry to keep that eye contact, pulling his gaze off elsewhere in a manner that brought Mikey nothing but panic. "Look, I want to take you to my brother... he'll know what to do with you like this, and I can't just leave you... I mean you're fucked up, but I can't just tell anyone - that shit's illegal, but he won't reply to my texts and I don't fucking know where he lives and this is all fuck-"

"I do..." Pete mumbled out, his words slurred, and his eyes set off in the distance somewhere in manner that caused Mikey to question if Pete even heard a single word that left his lips at all. "He's staying with Lindsey... s-she's Jamia's girlfriend, and I know where it is..."

"How the fuck-" Mikey wanted to demand really just how Pete of all people knew where his brother lived and he didn't, but he reckoned now really wasn't quite the time. "Can you tell me where, Pete?"

"It's literally just down that fucking road right there - number sixty nine." Pete giggled at the number, and Mikey reckoned he would have done so even if he wasn't high as fuck, but at the very least Mikey could eternally thank him for somehow knowing this, and for it only being down the street, because getting Pete to walk in straight line like this was proving rather difficult.

In fact, getting Pete to do anything in a straight manner always seemed to prove rather difficult.

-

"You know? You do look really fucking cute in that shirt, Frankie, but I reckoned you'd look like a million times cuter with it off." Gee couldn't help but giggle at the roll of his eyes Frank gave him in response: almost like a reflex.

The two of them were cuddled up on the sofa in Lindsey's front room; arms and legs tangled and a mess everywhere, and Frank reckoned he was sitting more on Gee than he was on the actual piece of furniture. The TV was still on from when Lindsey had left for work, and it was playing some Family Guy rerun that neither of the two were paying any attention to whatsoever.

"Stop being such a fucking whore." Frank couldn't help but mimic Gee's stupid little giggle as he pressed his head down into his boyfriend's chest; this was definitely a better alternative to going to school today, and really, like this he didn't even have to face any of his friends or deal with Mikey and his rant about his brother for today, because that was really getting tiring, and Frank reckoned he'd end up saying something he shouldn't if Mikey didn't shut up sooner or later.

And Frank reckoned that here in Gee's arms, sat dangerously close to his crotch also, was just the perfect escape from reality, and the perfect way to forget, because Pete intoxicated himself with things of an illegal nature and Frank intoxicated himself with that stupid fucking boyfriend of his that he wasn't supposed to have.

And it would have been perfectly peaceful if the doorbell didn't decide to ring, almost causing Frank to jump in his boyfriend's lap; the older of the two rolling his eyes as it was already silently agreed that it was his turn to answer the door and tell the guy trying to sell them double glazing to go fuck himself in the most eloquent of manners.

However, it was not some guy trying to sell them double glazing, and Gee soon found that out as he pulled open Lindsey's front door and there stood his little brother, scowling at him, holding a guy Gee didn't recognise, but was clearly off his tits completely.

"Should've answered my texts, Gee. I don't know what to do - he's taken loads, and you know about this shit, and I'm... I'm useless..." Mikey choked out, pushing past his brother as he heaved Pete in through the door, where the eyeliner donning boy fell onto the ground in a heap, back against the wall just the moment Mikey let go of him for just a second.

"Mikey... fuck, you can't not now... just take him home or something, please..." Gee's eyes widened with fear as he came to the rather sudden car driving off a cliff realisation that Frank was sat in the next room, clueless and no doubtedly soon to be curious as to the source of the commotion.

"Gerard!" Mikey snapped, stepping forward to meet his brother, eyes almost firing up. "This... this isn't just anybody... this... this is Pete."

It was the very moment that Frank walked into the hallway was when he really seemed to just freeze in his tracks, his heart seeming to stop not all that longer after, as there was no doubt in the fact that there stood Mikey fucking Way, and there collapsed upon the floor was Pete fucking Wentz, Frank was really nothing over than fucking screwed.

"Pete..." Gee stressed his brother's previous words, repeating them, unaware to how his boyfriend stood like the doorway like a deer in the headlights, because if Frank had the slightest ounce of common sense about him then he would have run and hidden and protected his sexuality and whatever dignity he had left, and really just the far too obvious connotations to standing in Gee (technically Lindsey's) house in pyjama bottoms and a stupid fucking shirt that was blatantly homosexual enough to almost scream that it did in fact belong to Frank's boyfriend, and not Frank himself.

There was however a certain hope for Frank in the very homosexual nature in which Pete and Mikey had ended up together in school hours, panting and kind of stressed in a totally straight manner, of course, but there was also something very blatantly queer and just damn right obvious in the way Frank stood there, and lying really didn't look like an option in this situation, and the both of them, in fact, just about everybody there was well and truly screwed.

"Yeah... that's me..." Came Pete's voice from where he had curled up on the carpet: his words slurred, and even in Frank's state of 'oh my god I can't even move I'm actually going to die', he still felt just a little concern for the emo shaped lump half passed out on Lindsey's floor.

And it was really then that everything went wrong because god had somehow decided that he hated Frank enough to command it that Mikey scanned around the room, and in eventuality, leaving his eyes to fall upon Frank, and unmistakeably Frank, stood at the entrance to the living room and kind of shell shocked and more so on the verge of killing himself on the spot right there.

"Frank?" Mikey let his name out like some sort of ungodly shriek, then rubbing his eyes as if the possibility that he was hallucinating his best friend in his brother's house was a more likely possibility than the fact that Frank was actually there, and in pyjama bottoms with bed hair too, because that had nothing but negative connotations, true ones, of course, but in this case, when it came to Mikey Way, they were nothing but life destroying.

Gee's eyes flew round to meet Frank's soon after, almost in an 'oh fucking shit' kind of motion, tossing him an apologetic glance, knowing that the younger of the two would get more of the backlash for this and on an everyday basis, and really, he just dreaded to wonder how he could even try to lie their way out of this one, because it really did not look all that probable at all.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" He exclaimed, ignoring his almost boyfriend almost passed out on the floor, and made his way over to his best friend who just about everyone doubted would be his best friend for all that much more. "Why does everyone know where my brother lives beside me? But seriously, what the fuck, Frank? What are you lying to me about, come on, spit it out- wait, are those pyjamas....?"

Gee exhaled, tossing Frank a sympathetic, yet eternally pathetic look, because there was definitely no way around the obvious, not this time anyway, and being the oldest, Gee reckoned he should be the one to say it. "Mikey..." Exhale. Inhale. Burst Your Lungs Open. Exhale again. Inhale again. "Meet my boyfriend."

Silence.

Silence as Mikey's relatively small brain attempted to process what he'd just heard as he looked his best friend up and down and fitted him to everything his brother had said about his boyfriend, because oh dear fucking lord his best friend had been fucking his brother and Mikey was most definitely going to punch something or someone in the next five minutes.

"No." He shook his head firmly, almost unable to accept it at all, or perhaps just incredibly unwilling. "No, Frank, you're straight... you... you have a girlfriend. Fuck off."

"Funny how I could say the exact same about you, huh? And look at you and Pete there." And then Mikey nearly died, because Frank knew and Frank just couldn't know, but he did, and oh fuck, they were all going to die, and mostly Mikey because Mikey was really going to fucking die. 

"You told him?" Mikey let out a vulture like screech, his words directed at his brother, who now stood sort of awkwardly, pulling Pete up from the floor before he became all to adamant upon staying down there, because the passed out emo on the floor wouldn't be the easiest of things to explain to Lindsey.

Gee just nodded in response, biting down on his lip until it bleed in his absence of words.

"And, by the way, think about my girlfriend that I sometimes call Gee for just longer than a second, huh? And I am far from straight, Mikey Way." Gee couldn't help but chuckle a little at that, gaining nothing other than a loving death glare from his brother in response.

"When did this happen? You're just experimenting, Frank. You're as straight as a fucking straight line, damn it!" Mikey exclaimed, slamming his fist against the wall and sinking to the floor in the process, proceeding to pull his knees up to his chest. "And my brother, really? You\re just dating him to get back at me, aren't you? My brother, really?"

"I've known I was gay for years, Mikey, Gee is just the first guy I've been with and it just has to be, because god hates me, that the perfect guy I met at a party that I felt in love with, just happened to be your fucking brother!"

"Party?" Mikey scoffed, rolling his eyes, descending further into madness. "Like you'd go to a party, Frank. It's all fucking bullshit - this is just some elaborate scheme to get back at me and your girlfriend is going to pop out from behind a fucking coffee table or something."

"The narcissism never stops." Gee commented, rolling his eyes, as he let Pete support himself on his weight. "Look, I'm going to go look after your, boyfriend, here, Mikey, and you can sort your shit out, huh?"

"Wait, Mikey..." Pete pushed his words out, locking his eyes with the kid in a beanie having a breakdown, of course having no problem with being referred to as Mikey's boyfriend at all. "They are dating. They have been a long time - I've known, and... and so has Ray, and so has Jamia- look, Jamia was fucking there the night they first met, and you can... just don't give them shit for this."

"I didn't know he was your friend when I fucking met him, Mikey." Gee snapped, backing up Pete’s much more calmly put statement. "I didn't even think a shithead like you could have friends as great as Frankie, honestly. It surprises me that the two of you don't hate each other's guts."

"Oh, trust me - we do." Mikey added, scowling as his brother dragged the guy who wasn't his boyfriend, but almost, into the kitchen and attempted to stop Pete from collapsing or dying on them.

"Mikey... I-" Frank exhaled as the two of them found each other alone, only of course to be soon interrupted by his ex-best friend.

"Why him? Why him of all fucking people? He's an asshole?"

"Because he's got a lovely asshole, Mikey, and I love him, and he's perfect, and oh yeah, your brother looks fucking hot in a miniskirt."

And right then Mikey made an expression of disgust worth dying for.

"I could ask just the same about you and Pete, Mikey-"

"There is no me and Pete!" Mikey exclaimed, storming off and out of the house, leaving Pete behind him and really Frank considered going back after Mikey and slapping him across the face, because Pete Wentz was the person he wanted to deal with the least right now.

That went fucking perfect, Frank thought to himself, and then proceeded to slam his head against the wall, because he was oh so fucking screwed.

-


	17. Mikey Way The Magical Queer Princess

"He's gone." And that was all Frank needed to say as he made his way into the dining room; Pete sat upon the table itself with what seemed like a litre of water beside him and two advils, Gee stood just a few metres away from him, his face deadset with concern, both for Pete and Frank, because they were the ones whose lives Mikey was not going to stop until he was sure he'd ruined.

"He's gone." Gee repeated, his voice reeking of irritance and he looked just as if he was about to punch a wall, but the twenty five year old valued the functionality of his knuckles far too much to do something quite as stupid and irrational as that.

"He... he always does this... it's fine." Pete exhaled loudly between his words, almost as if he was struggling for breath - that or struggling to get the words out, struggling to lie to himself, but not only himself, struggling to lie to Gee and Frank too.

"It's not fucking fine." Gerard snapped out, surprising both Pete and Frank with his sudden outburst of anger.

"Gee?" Frank's eyes soon grew dark with concern, making his way over to his boyfriend, and leaving Pete to try not to pass out on the table by himself.

"I... I... just hate that he's related to me, and I hate how he acts, and just fucks thing up for everybody, because he was always just far too eager to blame everything on me at home, and Pete he treats you like fucking shit - he has the nerve to be all fucking worried and anxious because he likes you, and then only to treat you like this, and it's damn ridiculous. And then he gest the nerve to be personally offended that his best friend is gay, when he really isn’t the straightest fucking person ever."

"You don't hate him, though?" Frank asked, eyes dilating as he came to look at his boyfriend with a nervous disposition and a certain uncertainty. 

"I fucking should, but he's my brother, and fucking family always just fucks you up in the end-" And Frank watched with wide eyes as Gee broke down into tears, and even in the state he was in, Pete turned around in shock: the two highschoolers shared a look as Gee tried to barge past Frank and make his way out, only to be meet by nothing but certainty from the seventeen year old.

"Gee, come on, running away's not going to do anything." Gee only shook his head in response, reluctant to agree with the obvious truth Frank was presenting him with. "Mikey ran away from his problem - do you want to be like him, Gee?" Perhaps he was just stepping over the line there, but maybe Gee had a point, and maybe Mikey had fucked everyone else over just enough to deserve it just this once, or maybe even twice, quite possibly three times, maybe four-

"I think Mikey's just really self-conscious and is perhaps killing himself in his head over the whole gay thing, because he likes you, Pete, there's no question about that. The only concern is to what extent and then to what extent is he willing to show it." Frank exhaled, taking his boyfriend's hand as Pete got up from the table, still clutching his head just a little.

"I wish there was nothing between us, I just, it would... be easy, but I can't... because I just... I-" Pete shook his head, his lips battling his tongue as the words caught in his throat: three little words that he daren’t admit to anybody, not even himself, especially not Mikey's best, or perhaps ex best, friend.

"We don't get a choice in who we love - not really." Gee exclaimed, catching Frank's gaze for just a moment, as the seventeen year old wondered just what horrors he'd go back to school to face tomorrow, because this shit had most definitely doubled in its 'oh fuck this will ruin my life' factor.

"I just wish he'd make his mind up, because I am so sick of all of this, because there's his girlfriend innocent and naive to all of this, and there's no way in hell he ever deserved to date Alicia Simmons, and especially not now, especially not with what he's done." Pete shook his head, as he couldn't quite shake the feeling that Alicia was just better than him and he was always a second choice and Mikey's little secret and he just couldn't do that, and he didn't want to do that, because he didn't want to be this. "Alicia deserves to know."

"Mikey will plot your demise if you fuck up him and Alicia - that's the only thing he's wanted for far too long, and I'm sure he will make you regret it." Frank exhaled, taking a seat as he wondered just what had brought him into the position of defending Mikey Way, because maybe, no matter what he'd done, he was still Frank's best friend, and that was just such a hard thing to cut himself off from. "And right now, really the last thing he needs is for everyone to know that maybe he likes to look at guys' asses just a bit more than he should."

"Would you still be saying that when he goes about shouting about you and Gee?" Pete brought up the elephant in the room question - the one that made Frank queasy and sick to his stomach as he continued to dread even the thought of going to school tomorrow, because if he knew anything, it was that he just couldn't prolong these things forever. "Because it's Mikey, and he will."

"We'll deal with blackmail when it's necessary, Pete." Frank exhaled, shaking his head as he continued to ponder just what he'd face tomorrow at school. "Fuck, I can't do this. I'd rather fake my own death than go back and face everyone's expectations and assumptions."

"Frankie, I promise you, look, you too Pete, if Mikey does anything to either of you, he will hear about it from me, and trust me, I can very easily ruin his life with his parents - not that they aren't all too eager to hate just about everything and everyone, but... maybe I don't even want to do this, but Mikey's got some serious fucking problems."

It was then the door opened, and Lindsey stepped into the dining room, slightly confused and just a little concerned at the sight before her.

-

"Brendon, I'm kind of worried about Frank, you know..." Ryan spoke almost nervously to his boyfriend, the two of them sat outside near their home room, and just a little concerned regarding Frank's continued absence and the confession that had most likely caused it. "I mean, he hasn't been here for a while now, like no one's heard a thing, and I'm kind of just worried."

"It'll be fine, Ryan, promise." Brendon exhaled, his eyes meeting everything but Ryan's, because he couldn't be certain here and he really hated lying to his boyfriend. "I'm sure he'll be back soon - you never know he may even be back today."

"It's unlikely.." Ryan admitted to himself, Brendon only serving as witness to his words, and as it seemed silent witness, however, his verbal ineptitude was soon ignored as Patrick appeared out of what felt like nowhere and sat beside them, pulling his knees up to his chest and trying his best, but of course to no avail, to muffle his sobs.

"Patrick?" Ryan exclaimed, his eyes widening as he soon realised the ginger haired kid was simply not just going to talk to either of them about this; he glanced at Brendon, who only shrugged - clueless as how to deal with this, because this just really wasn't his forte. "Are you alright?"

"Of course he's not alright, Ryan." Brendon rolled his eyes, moving closer to Patrick and grabbing his hand and subsequently his attention. "Patrick, what's happened? Why are you crying?"

"Pete..." And it was only one word before Brendon was cursing the asshole and Ryan was sat wishing his boyfriend wasn't quite so confrontational. "He... he's just being stupid... it's personal... it doesn't really matter, but I, I just care about him, and I..."

"Don't ever care about people - it's a fucking stupid idea." Brendon commented all too casually, leaving Ryan face frozen mid mock pout as his eyes caught upon two figures approaching just ten metres away; Brendon soon followed his gaze, and sure enough, it was none other than Pete and Frank. "Woah, wait do you think those two are... are a thing? Like look at them."

"They're not." Patrick said with what was almost a little too much certainty, and was only met by looks of confusion from both Ryan and Brendon. "I know who both of their boyfriends are. Ask them." The last part was definitely addressing the 'why don't I know?' expression Brendon shot him moments later.

"Hey..." Frank exhaled, looking over the three of them, really ready for every bad reaction there was under the sun, but receiving nothing but silence, until he locked eyes with Patrick and noticed the tears. "Patrick, why-"

"How about you ask Pete?" Patrick snapped for probably the first time in his life, bringing everyone to silence as Pete and Frank shared a look of communal hatred for Mikey Way, and the shorter of the two could at least be grateful of the fact he hadn't been bombarded with questions yet, yet.

"Look, Patrick, I know Pete's been a bit of a shit friend recently, but you know, there's this guy and it's not easy-" Frank didn't get to finish his mediating bullshit sentence, and honestly you could say that was a good thing.

"You'd know a lot about guys, wouldn't you, Iero?" Brendon raised his eyebrows, smirking a little to himself and Frank couldn't help but blush as he spent his silence thanking God that in the very least, Mikey hadn't turned up to school yet. "Do tell us more about this sexuality of yours. Oh, and Patrick mentioned this boyfriend, care to tell us more? Or are you far too good for us for that?"

"It's not like it fucking matters anymore, huh." Frank exhaled, throwing his bag down to the floor and sitting down beside Ryan, leaving Pete to awkwardly sit near Patrick, only eliciting a negative response from the less emo of the two. "Mikey knows. He knows I'm gay, and he knows who my boyfriend is, and that's not good, that's so not good, because... I'm... I'm dating his brother."

And absolute silence, until Brendon actually broke out into a fit of laughter, and Frank seriously began to consider punching him. "That's working out well for you, isn't it, huh? How can Mikey even have a gay brother, or is that kid so far up his own ass in denial that even a dick as small as yours won't fit up there."

"I'd say he's very flamboyant, actually. Quite the obvious homosexual." Frank spoke casually, biting back a smirk as he knew exactly what to say next, and could only await Brendon's facial response with nothing but excitement.

"Oh really? Sucked a dick like what? Once?"

"Well, he likes wearing skirts, and he's a totally slutty bottom." Brendon's eyes widened at that, and Ryan couldn't help but blush just a little.

"He's related to Mikey? Are you fucking kidding me? No way." Brendon shook his head, absolutely denying to accept something like that.

"Yes way. He's a way. Gee Way, well Gerard, but you can't call someone wearing a skirt Gerard. It just sounds kind of ridiculous." Frank giggled just a little as he felt the blush his cheeks had taken upon the absolute pleasure of wielding.

"I want to meet this guy." Brendon exclaimed, and Patrick only shook his head, his eyes widening, leaving everyone in utter confusion, until that is Mikey sat down, right between Brendon and Frank.

"So then? What have you said, Pete? For every fucking thing you've said, I'll say one fucking thing about Frank." Mikey commanded, pushing his glasses back up his nose, and Frank couldn't help but freeze at the tears he refused to believe had been wiped from Mikey Way's eyes.

"He literally just told us." Brendon perked up; eyebrows raised high, as he looked Mikey up and down with a look of disgust. "Frank, I mean, we know. We know nothing about Pete, besides the fact that it's probably why Patrick's crying."

"Hey, Mikey, how about for every time you insult or attack anyone again, I'll tell Alicia you've been cheating on her, and then doing what, and then who with, and then I'll tell Brendon and Ryan, and then Ray, and then everyone else." Pete suggested, glaring at the boy he couldn't help but be in love with.

"I know what you think about me, Pete. You know how easily I could tell everyone that-"

"This is literally the most pathetic blackmail I had ever had the misfortune of witnessing." Jamia, of course, Jamia - finally, someone Frank actually wanted to talk to. "Pete, Mikey, you have a detention waiting for you at the main office, by the way - skipping school, not the best of ideas, and Frank, a word."

And from the look in her eyes, Frank knew one thing, and that was that this really could not be good.

-

"You know, technically this is slave labour by forcing us to stay after school and do work and shit like this is just racism, like I could probably be black, you know, like-"

"Pete, I really don't want to talk to you at all." Mikey, as usual, had no problem when it came to speaking his mind, pulling his gaze away from where the boy was sat on top of a table, and of course, just as luck would have it, they were the only two in the detention room, and there was just no sign of any teacher yet, which was of course making it sure that Mikey was in fact dangerously close to just downright slapping Pete across the face.

"Then, we'll communicate in sign language - we learned it in like first grade with this really creepy bald guy who probably had some predatory wishes." Pete rambled off causally, gesturing with his hands as Mikey made his way to the back of the classroom, ensuring that he was physically just as far away from Pete Wentz as he could possibly get.

"I'll leave if you don't shut up." Mikey raised his eyebrows as he grabbed his phone from his pocket, reading over his most recent text message. "Pete-" The tone of concern in his voice was never quite recognised as Pete interrupted him with a statement that he couldn't quite just bring himself to ignore.

"Which means that you don't really want to leave." Pete only smirked in recognition of his newfound 'discovery' joining Mikey at the back of the classroom; Mikey only sighed, pocketing his cell phone and accepting that he would have to sort things out with Pete eventually. "You can't ignore me forever - we have to talk-"

"We are talking." Mikey butted in, pulling his gaze away after a few seconds, and for once, actually wishing for the presence of a teacher.

"Not about what happened- Mikey, we're not talking about when you kissed me, and the obvious feelings you have on me and I know what you said to Gee so don't even try to deny this, just tell me what's going on with this... with us, and where Alicia stands in all of this." And Pete really could do nothing but pray that his bravery didn't go to waste.

"Alicia's my girlfriend and... you're just some guy that I happen to maybe just be a little bit in love with, but it's fucking ruining my life, Pete - I can't do this." And never once had a smile been both so quickly created and destroyed.

"You never really loved Alicia if you developed these feelings for me whilst you were with her." Pete argued, the both of them having pretty much accepted the absolute absence of any sort of supervision throughout this detention. "I'm biased, yeah, whatever - so are you."

"So you just want me to dump me girlfriend and bone you?"

"Basically, well, yeah." Pete admitted, blushing a little and chuckling just far too much at Mikey's response. "What's wrong, asshole? Got a dick up your ass- oh wait."

"I'm just not gay, though, it's... it's just you." Mikey shook his head, as he couldn't quite believe what he was saying. "I just... I don't get how any of this works, because it's just Alicia, and you, like I barely even find anybody else attractive - I just like, get obsessed with people, and then shit happens."

"There's a sexuality for that, actually-"

"I don't want some fucking fairy magic bullshit label just to make me feel special. I don't want to be some magical queer princess, I just want to understand what's going on in my head, what's going on in my heart..." Maybe that was just a little too deep, especially for Mikey Way - the only kind of deep he knew was the penetration kind.

"Well, you're never going to have any hope of understanding that unless you start investigating and shit, like you don't know if you like kissing boys or girls better or equally or whatever until you've tried everything. Experimentation is what you're supposed to do, not lock yourself up in a heteronormative box and ruin your life." 

"You just want me to kiss you again." Mikey admitted the elephant in the room, and the silence that followed could only be taken as shy agreement, and maybe Mikey was seriously stupid for even considering this. "As long as you don't react as you did last time."

And before Pete could even process just quite what was happening, Mikey's lips were on his for the second time, yet this time, everything seemed to work, and everything was so cliché and Mikey was practically sick at that, but the way his lips felt against Pete's seemed to distract him from that overall, because maybe kissing boys was good, and maybe kissing girls was good too, but kissing Pete, that was just phenomenal.

Everything just seemed to fade away at the connection of their lips, because all of a sudden Mikey just didn't seem to give a damn about how wrong this was: about his parents, about his heterosexuality, about his girlfriend, about his reputation, or about anything. Maybe that was loving someone, but at this point, still, Mikey reckoned he was just a little scared to really find out what loving someone properly felt like, but what he did know for certain, was that whatever he had with Pete - whatever they had here with his lips on Mikey's, that was perfect.

But they had to pull away eventually, eyes locking as both waited for the other to freak out or change their mind, but for once it seemed like God- or perhaps Satan, considering the homosexual nature of this situation, was on their side.

"Again-" Pete barely got to finish the one word he managed to push out through his lips, before Mikey, struggling for sanity, pushed Pete against the wall, and kissed him again, because even if this was just sex and hormones and teenagers being messed up, this was definitely the right kind of messed up, and he soon realised that maybe with Pete was all he wanted to be.

At least right now, at least until the butterflies and hormones wore off, at least until he faced reality again: reality was such a cockblock after all.

"I feel like maybe this is the sort of thing we'd need to continue somewhere private." Mikey guessed the hormones wouldn't wear off for quite a while now at least. 

-

"This kind of seems like a bad idea, but I think it's the best bad idea I've had in a long time." Mikey confessed as Pete pushed open his bedroom door: both of them overjoyed to find that the house was empty and that there wouldn't be any parents to awkwardly sweet talk and keep the noise down from, because Pete was kind of intent upon sucking Mikey Way's dick right now.

He knew that Mikey wasn't in any sort of right mind or at least his usual senses right now, and that it was totally wrong to take 'advantage' of him in a state such as this, but Pete couldn't quite stop himself, because at this point, if Mikey was going to let him blow him, then he most certainly was going to, and when inevitability struck, and somewhere down the line Mikey screamed at him and freaked out over this, he would simply do nothing but remind him of his willingness to partake in such an activity.

"I think it's a wonderful idea, honestly." Pete muttered in the response, locking the door behind them - just in case, and then turning around and kind of awkwardly locking his lips back on Mikey, who stumbled a little in response: unprepared and unexpectant of the impact, yet in no way objecting to it, at least not yet anyway, and that was all Pete had to hold onto right now, so he was going to.

Kissing soon became boring and monotonous and Pete dragged his lips down Mikey's neck, in aid of turning pale white skin a wonderful bruised shade: a purple and red like the kind of dawn skies you could only achieve in photoshop, and he reckoned there was probably something beautifully hipsteristic and even metaphorical about what he was doing to Mikey right now, but he was kind of thinking with dick instead of his head right now, and so in the moment it was nothing more than giving Mikey Way a hickey.

And it seemed Mikey was also locked far into the moment, because this was just being on the receiving end of a hickey from Pete Wentz and not cheating on his girlfriend and throwing his heterosexuality utterly in the trash, and adding another deadly secret to his long list of ones to always keep from his parents.

"Can I take your shirt off?" Pete stopped to ask, hands curling around Mikey's bony hips as they tugged at the bottom of the white cheap school shirt material. Mikey only nodded in response, shivering as Pete's fingers trailed against his skin in process of clumsily undoing buttons as fast as he could, yet still without breaking anything and leaving Mikey with a rather awkward situation to explain to his catholic parents and their no-sex-before-marriage beliefs.

Mikey's shirt was soon discarded on the floor, and even sooner drowning amongst a sea of Pete’s own clothing - messy of the floor, and neither party thought the task of receiving it would be at least easy, but they most certainly had other things on their minds right now, and that led to Mikey's hands on Pete's hips, and then to the bottom button, only for Pete to stop him as he cringed a red blush as he came to remember just to what lay on his arms under the long sleeve white shirt.

There was no lying - there was no way around them; the parallel red lines of self destruction in their dozens upon his forearms were more than self-explanatory and this was something he didn't ever want to discuss with Mikey, and especially not now.

"Don't be self-conscious, like, look at my scrawny little body - it's fine, Pete." Mikey promised, his lips giving way to a smile, painted rather convincingly in a genuine light, but little did Mikey know how off he was regarding the true issue at hand here.

"I just, it's not you, it's me - I'd rather not take it off for like personal reasons, please, it's mainly my arms, I just-"

"If you got some fucked up crazy birth mark, I really don't care." Mikey chuckled a little, speaking too fast as he pulled up Pete's sleeve and his gaze suddenly fell down and the true became far too apparent in raw red against skin. "Fuck... you did this to yourself, I... fuck, Pete, why?"

"Do you really want the truth, Mikey?" He snapped back, his tone turning nasty all at once. "Do you really?" Mikey nodded faster than he could think, as he simply bothered not to before responding. "You. You with all this mess, and I've liked you for so long, and surely this mess if better, but it's not, because nothing's ever easy with you, and yet these feelings still won't go away. Do you know how that feels?"

"I'm sorry." Mikey exhaled, his gaze dropping to the ground. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to ignore this, and I just want you to let me blow you, and I want us to go on forgetting about everything with any sense in it in favour of messy kisses and even messier blow-jobs." Pete spoke with confidence, and Mikey could only nod in response, biting down on his lip as the guilt began to sink in like water into a ship and oh boy, he was really sinking now.

"Okay." Mikey exhaled, considering just how much of a stupid decision this not only could but would be. "If you promise me you'll stop that shit." He gestured vaguely down at Pete’s wrists as he spoke.

"It's not that easy as just stopping-"

"Then fucking try, Pete." Mikey's voice was hoarse now, cracking and almost strained as he kept his tears inside, because his ship was sinking faster than he had anticipated and he was lost without an anchor. "For me, please."

"Okay."

And then they stopped talking again, Pete's shirt rendered neglected as he felt down to his knees and Mikey swallowed his guilt and feelings that connoted any common sense at all.

Because things just seemed to work better when you could swallow your pride along with your friend/enemy's come, because nothing created drama quite like it at all.

"That felt like a bad idea." Mikey spoke almost precariously, as if he was utterly in fear of Pete's reaction, as he sat turned away from him on his bed, eyes faced down and thumbs twiddled as he considered just running away right now - while he still could and the disastrous effects that would inevitably have, because maybe this time, he didn't want to break Pete, not completely, not again, especially not now he knew how he dealt with such a problem.

"But it felt good." Pete tried to speak for the both of them, but his confidence couldn't quite catch up with him. "It felt good, for me at the very least, because I like you, Mikey Way - I really do, and I know you hate that, maybe just because you like me too, but it's just not something that I can block out and ignore, especially not forever."

"I'm no good at talking - I'm no good at feelings." Mikey added the obvious as their eyes met once again, and Mikey couldn't help but blush, and blush even further when he came to realise it was in the presence of Pete Wentz. "I know I like kissing you though, and maybe I like things that are a little bit more than that, but-"

"Alicia." Pete brought forward the issue everyone had been ignored as he locked his eyes with the guy who wasn't quite his boyfriend, but he hoped one day that they would indeed get there. "She's still your girlfriend and you got your dick sucked by the emo faggot, so tell me, how does that feel, Mikey Way?"

"It feels like my sexuality makes the least sense of all, and it feels like I just don't know what to do about Alicia, because if I dump her, I'll look like an asshole and people will look for a reason and I don't want that-"

"You don't want people to know what a faggot you are, do you Mikey Way?" Pete already knew the answer, and stood up, let Mikey brood away in his silence, as he made his way over to the closet and pulled out a shoebox, giving it to Mikey with an absolute lack of explanation, and taking a seat beside him: his eyes however looking the opposite way.

Mikey, of course, opened the box, and gasped as he did so, because the contents was certainly just a little shocking: this was the box where Pete kept his blades and what had once been the start of a suicide note, but wasn't anymore, not right now at least. "You can't just keep these, Pete." Mikey shook his head as he spoke, grabbing the note, but soon realising he couldn't get past the first paragraph without tears flocking to his eyes.

"It doesn't matter, Mikey, I just... I want you to have the choice to take these away from me... if you want to- I... I-" Pete didn't get the chance to finish his sentence before the box was discarded on the floor and Mikey’s lips were on Pete's, and everything seemed to fade away in a mess of hormones and a text from Alicia ignored on Mikey's phone, as she sat at home, missing her boyfriend, and oblivious to the guy he was kissing right now.

"How about we throw them away?" Mikey asked, holding Pete's hand in an odd display of sentiment that was uncharacteristic to him and in turn special, causing Pete to go a little dizzy as he considered what would come of them and this, and how it could be nothing other than disaster.

"I'm scared." Pete admitted, exhaling as he threw himself back against the bed, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling above him, and his stomach doing backflips as Mikey joined him. "You don't have to care, Mikey, I'm fucking up your life, not just my own here, I-"

"Pete..." Mikey pleaded, shaking his head firmly as he continued in his protest that Pete was worthwhile, and Pete did his best to believe him, but Mikey wasn't a miracle worker by any means, and therefore, Pete still felt like slapping himself across the face and writing some melancholy mediocre poetry before overdosing on something, and perhaps ensuring that Mikey didn't find him this time.

Because even if he seemed determined to save Pete from himself, he still wasn't a saint, and perhaps not even a saint could save him now, because it was the kind of deep sea ocean sinking, but not quite drowning, because maybe this time he was the anchor, yet he just couldn't quite figure where he belonged until he hit the very ocean floor.

-


	18. Bob Bryar Craiglist Entrepreneur

"Gee, please." Lindsey's voice on the phone was firm but in fear: a pleading whimper, and that hardly mattered because Gee was far too stoned to even decipher what she was saying half the time, let alone look into her tone of voice and her choice of words.

In fact, he was possibly too stoned to even speak, and the silence proved it as he sat on the stained carpet of his now wrecked, once bedroom: eyes blurry as they spun around the room of their own accord and he tried to stop himself from forgetting where he was and who he was, but it seemed to be proving harder than the highly intoxicated twenty five year old had accounted for.

The phone thrown against the carpet on speakerphone, without a damn care as to whoever the conversation they shared as he came to accept that it would be rather likely that he would have nothing but his call log to prove this moment even happened by tomorrow morning.

And Gerard found himself strangely okay with that.

It was so weird how it only took only like fuck up to put everything into perspective and send his whole life toppling down like a little domino trail, except these were definitely stone hedge esque dominos because as they fell down, it fucking hurt.

It didn't hurt like this though, it didn't hurt when he'd forgotten the pain almost the moment he'd felt it, and it didn't hurt when his middle name was a concept he just couldn't quite grasp, and maybe this had reduced him to some sort of self-destructive vegetable, but hadn't everyone always said that vegetables were good for you and surely this state couldn't do more harm to him than he did in his usual pattern of tragic existence.

"Gee? Are you there?" Lindsey found herself impatient and concerned in the silence, which the twenty five year old had given her as his only answer, and Gerard only smiled, and it wasn't at her, and it didn't matter, because she couldn't see, and it was just at himself and how ridiculous it felt and with his vision as blurred as this, how the light streaming in through the window seemed to act like a ballroom for the dust dancing within it.

Gee couldn't dance; he didn't mind, he liked watching.

"Gerard?" She cried again, her voice with morning meaning this time, and perhaps enough to get Gee to listen, and this time he did find himself responding, but perhaps only for the immediate benefit her comfort in his existence would bring, and for that Gerard let himself be selfish, comforted only with the knowledge he'd probably forget all of this anyway.

"Lindsey." He repeated, his voice almost sarcastic and mocking in tone, and he was simply blessed with the fact that Lindsey was too worried about him to be offended, let alone make a big deal about how unacceptable what he'd just said was.

Gee swore she acted more like his mother than his friend most of the time, and that really wasn't a good thing, because she wasn't. She wasn't his mother, and she never would be - Lindsey was far too nice, and Lindsey cared, and Lindsey tolerated him for who he was, and maybe it was just nice having someone who cared about him like that.

But it was just a little game, a facade, and a facade that would soon wipe itself clean the moment his real mother reared her ugly head once more.

And let's just say, the facade was long gone by now.

And perhaps so was Gee's sanity as he rolled himself another spliff and popped another pill and tried to recite the alphabet but only go to the letter E, before he got distracted in the noises coming from down the phone line, because she'd started talking again and this time he wasn't even pretending to be listening.

"...please, Gee, I don't even know what you're doing, but you're being a fucking idiot and you need to come back - you just can't do this, please."

Please was such a pathetic word, and maybe this was such a pathetic plea, but Lindsey was in no way pathetic, and Gee, even in a state such as this, still knew that, deep down, like in the same way, that even now he could still probably paint a photograph like picture of Frank's eyes.

"I can." He spoke perhaps more to himself than to Lindsey, or perhaps no one at all, because who really was listening to a stoner fucker like him? And it perplexed him how it seemed to be, the longer that he thought about it, the less it was a problem. "I can do anything. Or maybe that's just now, because I'm stoned as fuck and I feel like flying and that doesn't feel like a problem at all, at least not from my perspective.

"Gee, for fuck's sake, getting stoned isn't the answer, you just can't solve every little problem of yours with an ounce or two of weed and a little bag of pills-" She tried to argue some sense into him, but this was Gee Way and there was very little chance at all that he'd be listening, even if he wasn't stoned: things weren't looking good for either of them, to say the least.

"I don't really care, I mean, I'm just happy right now, because it kind of hurts to breathe, but that just makes every breath all the more worthwhile and I feel like I'm dying here, but that just makes every second I'm living all the more worthwhile, and honestly, if I didn't like you, Lindsey, I would have hung up by now... that or if my fingers weren't shaking so rampantly that I can't keep track of the hang up button."

"Gerard! What the fuck have you taken?" He jumped a little at her use of his full name, but cared not to answer, only turning his head towards the little bag that once was full of weed and was now full of air and really a whole lot of nothing, and he smiled to himself, because for once he didn't feel like dying, and maybe he did have to almost kill himself to achieve such an elusive state of complacency with his own existence.

"Gee?" he jumped at the voice, because this time it was all so very clear that it didn't belong to Lindsey, but the man who'd just pushed his bedroom door open with a lopsided kind of smirk like grin that gave nothing away regarding his intentions. "Who are you talking to?" The man followed his eyes to the phone lying on the floor.

"Gee? Is that..." Lindsey's voice shrieks out from the phone, panic now even apparent to Gee in the state he was in. "Is that? Bert-" And then silence as the sole of Bert's boot collided with the cellphone, crushing it to nothingness amongst the carpet.

Gee was all wide eyes and confusion, unsure as to whether this was a bad thing, or a punishment or what, and Bert only smiled at him, picking the broken cellphone off the carpet before slamming the door behind him.

The twenty five year fell back onto the floor and swallowed the last three pills, his whole world fading out into nothingness in thirty seconds flat.

-

"Awake are we, sleeping beauty?" Bert chuckled to himself as Gee made his way into the living room, pushing his dark hair behind his ears, as he ignored Bert's gaze, sitting down on the sofa opposite the asshole whose roof he once again found himself living under. This was inevitably a stupid decision, and he was of course only coming to realise that due to the fact he was nearly intoxicated enough to look at Bert McCracken like a friend.

"What's wrong, princess?" Bert probed further, taking not of Gee's rather sour expression, consisting of a scowl a pair of high raised sarcastic eyebrows.

"What you did to me is wrong, Bert." Gee finally answered his question, exhaling as he noticed the bottle of vodka on the coffee table: a rather ordinary thing to see in this house, but after staying with Lindsey for a few weeks now, it still took him by surprise. "Can I?" He asked, gesturing towards the vodka.

"Sure thing, princess." Bert shrugged, grinning a little as Gee downed an unhealthy amount of vodka in one go. "Sorry about the whole fucking you thing as well, I just find it hard to look at that Frank kid in the same way you do."

"Considering the fact that he's my boyfriend, I'd rather you didn't look at him in quite the same way that I do." Gee paused, looking Bert's coy smile up and down as he placed the vodka bottle back down and shuffled nervously against the decaying leather of the sofa Bert had pawned off some polish guy with a rather extraordinary moustache. "You raped me Bert, and another thing, don't call me princess."

"Whatever, honey." Gee shook his head at Bert's newly found, and perhaps even more uncomfortable nickname for him. "It was just fucking, I'm sorry - you're pretty and I have a cock, you know how that adds up, huh?"

"That adds up to make you an absolute utter fucking asshole." Gee corrected him, face returning to its usual sarcastic expression, causing Bert to grimace a little as he tried his best to simply shrug the accusation off, and really, as expected, it wasn't working at all.

"Then why are you here?" Bert asked the question on everyone's mind, and Gee trembled at the thought of an explanation. "I know you had it pretty good with Lindsey, and your underage boyfriend seemed to be so much more happier the further you were away from me."

"Bert, you fucking ra-"

"Technically, since Frank is underage and cannot legally consent to anyone over the age of eighteen, you did too." Bert just added a little snide smirk for his own amusement as Gee exhaled loudly, greatly considering the concept of slapping himself in the face.

"My parents found out where I was - through my brother, and everything just kind of got messed up from there, and Lindsey doesn't know, mainly because otherwise she'll know to look for me here, and really, Bert, I'm fine here, aren't I? I'd rather be with you than where my parents can find me, I mean... it's just- fuck... you understand where I'm coming from with this whole family bullshit, and I need that right now."

"Family are a waste of time in my opinion - you don't get to choose them, you're just sort of obligated to care about them, even if they're assholes, and that's just bullshit, in my opinion." Bert lit a cigarette as he spoke, exhaling a puff of smoke at the end of his sentence, chuckling to himself as he recognised the exact expression upon Gee's face, and threw him the packet of cigarettes, which the twenty five year old happily helped himself to.

"And Lindsey was very much against the idea of me doing anything more than smoking cigarettes and Jesus fucking Christ, those pills were so good, like seriously, you can't have got them from Bob: they actually did something and didn't kill me." Bert chuckled a little at that, his eyes drifting around the room as he continued in his casual and relaxed state of nicotine inhalation.

"Still Bob, he just stopped buying them from dodgy dudes on craigslist, so you know - it's a world of difference. He was like some sort of craigslist entrepreneur." Bert laughed aloud as he continued. "He got a girlfriend as well - how, is of course, beyond my understanding."

"Craigslist." Gee finished for him, his eyes trailing to the ground. "I forgot that we were like best friends, I mean, that just kind of stopped, I-"

"I messed it up." Bert met Gee's gaze with a sincerity that the twenty five year old had never even expected him to be capable of. "I shouldn't have done that shit, messed up big time. Doesn't matter that I like you, Gee, because you've got Frank, and maybe I'll just have to learn to accept that."

"You like me? Like like like me?" Gee exclaimed, eyes growing wide as he really hadn't prepared him for the fact that Bert may actually possess any form of normal human emotion at any point in his life, and especially not towards him.

Bert only nodded, the room falling to silence in consequence as he continued to burn down his cigarette, and in turn, his lungs. "I don't just call anybody princess, Gee. Anyway, you're fucking pretty - anyone can see that."

"I don't." He protested, almost like a teenage girl.

"Everyone except you then." Bert corrected himself, rolling his eyes. "Look, I'm really sorry, Gee, and just in case things don't work out with Frank, not that I'm wishing that they will, you know I'm always here for you, don't you?" Bert got up, making his way towards what Gee presumed to be his bedroom.

"Yeah, I know." Gee nodded as his housemate walked out of the room, leaving the twenty five year old to deal with the biggest fucking headache of his life.

-

"It kind of feels weird, this, you know?" Mikey exhaled as he fell back in Pete's sofa, making himself at home in what he hoped was the least awkward manner possible - it wasn't.

"What?" Pete asked, walking in through the door, pushing his fringe back out of his eyes for what was probably the thousandth time today, as he continued in persisting in his belief that it most definitely didn't need cutting, and he especially wasn't letting his grandma do it, because last time she did, Pete had ended up with a bowlcut, and she had ended up with a fist shaped hole in her bathroom wall.

"Being here, just like hanging out here - being alone with you, because I know what that means, and I know what we are, yet I just can't seem to believe that this is actually happening." Pete passed Mikey a slightly bemused expression as he sat down beside him on the sofa in the empty house, leaving them with far too much time and sexual tension to themselves.

Oh, only if Mikey's parents really knew where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing right now. Even worse if they knew who he was doing right now.

"Of course it's actually happening - I'm not some fucking hallucination or weird ass sexual fantasy, Mikey Way. I'm a real person with feelings and shit that you can hurt, you know that, right?" Pete asked, grabbing his almost boyfriend's clammy palm as Mikey found himself under a great deal of pressure and scrutiny from the one person he'd trusted everything to.

"Of course I know that." Mikey stuttered out, eyes growing wide as he began to wonder as to just where Pete was going with this and as to just what mess would come of words thrown with a tone easily misinterpreted and snide gazes that the other wasn't supposed to quite catch.

"Well, you know, but sometimes, even actually a lot of the time, you don't seem to act like it - not just with me, but with everyone, with how you act to Gee and Frank just because they love each other and how you treat that fucking girlfriend of yours, how she's still your girlfriend and here you are, in my house, looking at me like I'm just something you want to put your dick in- don't fucking lie to me, Mikey."

"Alicia's, well, Alicia. She's harder to break up with than you would imagine-"

"Oh so you're actually trying? Well that's something I most certainly did not account for." Pete rolled his eyes; getting up and sitting on the sofa opposite the one Mikey still remained sat on. "Don't fucking follow me until you can promise me that we're important, and then I want you to prove that you care about me and this isn't just some stupid fuck up. I want you to prove that we're serious, because you're not going to fuck with me, Mikey, you're not."

"How do I even prove that, Pete?" Mikey exhaled, getting up and walking over to Pete, standing before him. "Since you said I couldn't sit next to you, I'll stand here."

"Prove that by making me know that you mean it." Pete sighed, shaking his head. "In case you didn't know, love isn't something you can force, it's not some fucking popularity facade, it's not some fucking game." Pete shook his head; unable to continue as Mikey pulled him to his feet and connected their lips in one smooth motion bound to tear the whole world apart.

Pete Wentz and Mikey Way? Who would have guessed it? Not even them, for sure. Patrick, perhaps though, he had a sort of bittersweet talent when it came to just knowing things about Pete.

It was just that Pete barely seemed to know a thing about Patrick, and certainly not the fact that whilst all this mess of heartstrings and lies with Mikey was exploding in his face, Patrick was sat at home, eternally caring about his fucking emo asshole of a best friend with the fringe that needed cutting because it completely covered one of his eyes by now.

"So this is it? Kissing me until I shut up long enough for you to clear your conscience?" Pete asked, pulling Mikey down onto the sofa with him, and perhaps that was symbolic, but no one here was quite nearly pretentious enough to take any note of it.

"No, this is kissing you because I like doing it, and because I like you." Mikey finished, pushing his lips back onto Pete's, and suddenly nothing seemed to matter anymore as words were long lost amidst a mess of tongues, lips, and teeth.

And perhaps everything was perfect, and perhaps this was just Pete’s new favourite method of forgetting, and perhaps they could just pretend for a bit, but it seemed it took a rather real shock of reality to bring them back to where they sat and who they were and just what they were doing and just who they were hurting, and whether or not they'd be able to count all the mistakes they'd made on their fingers alone at the end of this mess.

It took Pete's dad to come home early, and it took him to peer into the living room, and it took him to scream the house down, before they pulled away and they almost seemed to plummet back down to earth.

"Pete? What on earth is going on?" His father's voice came out not like a shriek, but more of a bellow, a certain element of utter shock, more than anger or anything apparent in his tone.

"I.. uhh..." Pete stuttered, blushing his stupid little emo face off, turning to Mikey and then his father and thinking of no better waste of time than to introduce them. "Dad, this is Mikey, Mikey this is my dad."

"And so who is 'Mikey'? Some goddamn hooker off the street or something? And Jesus Christ, what are you doing getting off together on my damn sofa - I sent you to that school to get good grades so go do some damn revision, Pete."

"No, I... Mr Wentz, I'm his boyfriend." And that was then everything really set in stone and fell apart just at the same time.

-

"Frank, honey, are you okay?" Perhaps Mrs Iero was starting to get slightly concerned with the fact that her son had just come home and sat on the same spot on the sofa for the past two hours, or perhaps more with the fact that he hadn't sworn, slagged off his teachers, deafened the neighbours by blasting music, or even moaned about how he couldn't reach his cellphone, yet, or perhaps it was just that Jamia had texted her to say that she couldn't come over to talk to Frank about why he was upset and that Linda should do it herself.

"Not really no." Frank finally broke the silence with an answer only bound to cause more tension, but perhaps maybe, he was already buried far too deep into the pile of shit known as his life to care anymore, let alone actually do anything about the mess he'd surrounded himself in.

"What's wrong?" She asked, sympathetic mother mode turned on, as she sat down beside her son, peering awkwardly into the cup of coffee that he hadn't even touched and simply left to grow cold over the past two hours. "Jamia told me something was up, you know. Don't ignore me, okay?"

"Since when you did you get to be best pals with all my friends - I swear my friends like you better than me, I mean Mikey totally wants me dead right now, and so does Brendon, and Ryan's only neutral because he's a pacifist, and I'm pretty sure Patrick hates me because he hates Pete right now, because Pete's totally just fucking up everybody's life right now, and yet, I'm pretty sure Pete is the only one that still actually likes me." Frank paused, shaking his head as he realised just how he'd vented to his mother, of all people. "And, yeah, Jamia, but Jamia's less of my friend because she wants to and more of the fact that we know enough shit about each other that we might as well just make a blood pact right now. And I suppose Lindsey, but she's only nice to me because of Gee, and I don't think she actually likes me at all, she just doesn't want to upset him."

"What about Gee, huh?" She asked, almost forcing a smile upon her lips as she continued in her almost pathetic attempts to comfort Frank. "Does your boyfriend not count as your friend anymore?"

"Well, the thing is, a few days ago now, he kind of just disappeared, like he lives with Lindsey, and just one day, he wasn't there and then yesterday she calls him and he hangs up because Bert comes in, so he's fucking gone back to Bert's and Bert's the guy that fucking raped him- just I don't fucking get this. Why? Why the fuck would you do that? He hasn't even spoken to me."

"I guess your language is the last thing on your mind there, Frankie." She sighed, rolling her eyes, but giving her son an awkward motherly hug nonetheless.

"Sorry." He muttered, shaking his head a little. "I've tried calling him but now I think he's even turned his phone off, and really, even though I know where he is right now, I'm just scared to go, I'm scared, so's Lindsey, I think. Bert's... Bert can be alright, I guess, but his moral values are very far off, and when there's something he wants, and when that something is Gee, I..."

"Does anyone know why he suddenly left to Bert's? Do you know? Was there any kind of argument or anything?" She asked, honestly just a little stuck as to where to go with advice from here - maybe she was just perfectly fine when it came to elementary school esque 'he stole my toy' kind of dilemmas, but most certainly not this. "Or is there any kind of mutual friend between you and Bert that you could convince to do a favour for you?"

"Well, there was kind of argument, but Gee wasn't really involved, it was more of Mikey... and this whole mess he's created for himself here. It was more of Mikey and me screaming at each other because Mikey found out that Gee and I were together: he was in the other room and generally not at all fussed or involved." Frank exhaled, wondering just how mum friendly the answer to the next question would be, and perhaps right now, just a 'fuck it' would suffice.

"Yeah, well there kind of is a mutual friend, but he's... mum, he's less of a friend, and uhm... more of a drug dealer, but not really, Bob's just likes people giving weed and then living in their houses for weeks on end-"

"Drugs? Drugs, Frank, drugs, really?" She shook her head; eyebrows raised high, as she looked her son up and down.

"Mum, please, literally the worst thing I've done is weed." Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely true, but okay, that was one time.

"Just continue and I'll try to forget that you brought this up." She rolled her eyes, exhaling as she noted how this wasn't what she signed up for when she gave birth to some screaming, crying lump of shit and puke.

"Well, Bob and Bert meet regularly, like he goes there a lot, and Bob's kind of stupid, as well, or maybe he's just stoned all the time - I can't actually tell- anyway, he likes me as well, and is probably stupid enough to go along with whatever idiotic plan I can run past Jamia- if I buy some weed off him he'll probably sell me his soul, actually, so you know, getting him to casually ask Bert what's going on wouldn't all be that hard - thanks, mum, actually." Frank sprung to his feet with a smile on his lips.

"Somehow I didn't intend you take going to buy weed as the advice from this, but whatever - try not to get arrested at the very least."

-

And as if Mikey wasn't already going through a mental breakdown of the highest calibre with his mum screaming at him because he'd totally forgotten to turn up to church last week, and honestly the whole Catholic religion was going to fall to pieces at his one tiny mistake, that maybe, just maybe, might have been on purpose, because Mikey reckoned that right now, he was pretty much the poster boy for the exact opposite of Catholicism.

And as if he wasn't stressed enough already, his cellphone beeped twice in his hand - two texts, two different people, which was really very much of a surprise for Mikey, because he really didn't actually reckon he actually had that many friends right now.

Alicia, and Pete.

Well, fuck.

He read Alicia's first, maybe just because he kind of felt sorry about the fact that he was technically cheating on her, even if they hadn't spoke in like five days, and that was already pretty much relationship suicide, or maybe just because that was how his phone showed him them - in alphabetical order. Whatever, it hardly mattered, especially when Alicia had asked him to come over and talk or 'maybe more', and especially when she put two kisses and even a winky face, well a winky face emoji, but it still totally counted.

And then he remembered Pete's message, and then he remembered Pete - his boyfriend, and Alicia - his girlfriend, and the real predicament he'd gotten himself into here; to put it simply, he was just screwed.

Pete's text message only confirmed that in print, in writing - hard facts and evidence that he just couldn't ignore.

'Make your mind up. Are you gonna break up with her or me?'

And really, right now, with Alicia's message, that had actually made things harder at best, he felt himself unsure in what he truly wanted, for once, because maybe he wanted both of them, and maybe he just couldn't have that, so maybe he'd give himself this one last time with Alicia and then that could end, and then he could be with Pete, and then maybe he could be happy - just maybe.

Or at least he could hope. 

Well, at least then he knew that Pete was happy, and that counted for something, he guessed.

And so Mikey texted Alicia's whereabouts, put on far too much deodorant and lied to his parents about a homework study group for the last time, and perhaps there was something melancholic about that, but perhaps that was just because poor Mikey Way didn't truly know just what awaited him at Alicia's doorstep.

-

"Fuck."

Out of all the things Mikey could have possibly guessed, it most certainly wasn't this: it most certainly wasn't the back of her hand and a profanity that was definitely aimed directly at him, and to hurt him also.

"What was that for?" He exclaimed, pushing his glasses back up his nose, simply glad that at the very least, they remained intact and in fact, by some miracle, they hadn't shattered.

"What?" Alicia rolled her eyes, almost reluctantly pushing the door open and letting her 'boyfriend' in, for what the both of them silently acknowledged would be the last time.

"The slap." Mikey grumbled as he walked past her, following the gesture of her hand and making his way up into his bedroom, but perhaps for a totally different reason than he would have wanted to.

"What's going on, Mikey?" She asked once the door was locked behind them and the window was slammed shut, and her soon to be ex-boyfriend was sat awkwardly on her bed, almost like he knew that he didn't belong there anymore.

"What do you mean?" He muttered in response: his voice high pitched and making no secret about the anxiety he'd walked into the room with.

"Brendon Urie. Brendon and I are friends, you know." She told him, her tone far too casual, and almost snide, yet she reckoned with what he'd done, she had just about every right to use whatever degree of snideness she wished. "He doesn't really like you, you know."

"Yeah, I'd kind of noticed that, believe it or not." Mikey rolled his eyes, chuckling a little like this was nothing and that they both still belonged here, and this wasn't just nothing more than plain awkward.

"Oh shut the fuck up before I slap you again." She exhaled, making eye contact of her boyfriend of the next ten seconds. "So are you gay, or what?"

"What?" Mikey exclaimed, his face transforming into something that came to weirdly resemble a tomato, and perhaps this could have been something they could have laughed about if Mikey hadn't royally screwed everything up, once again.

"Pete Wentz." She stepped closer to him, meeting his gaze with nothing pure than pure intimidation. "Did nobody ever tell you that you can't have a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time?"

"So I'm supposed to pick between the two people I love?-" Alicia scoffed, rolling her eyes at the word 'love' and its misuse in particular.

"No, no you're not." She shook her head, pulling Mikey up from her bed, because he didn't belong here: in her room, in her house, in her life, anymore. "Because I won't let you pick me. We're so fucking done, Mikey - whatever, pick him, I don't care, I'm not going to fuck up your life like you did mine. I'm not an asshole, unlike you. Pick someone else entirely, again, I don't care. I don't want anything to do with you anymore."

"Alicia- I... I'm sorry, can we just be fr-"

"Don't you fucking dare! Get out of my fucking house before give you more than a fucking slap-"

"But you texted me with kisses and shit, I thought we were okay-"

"Like you were going to ever have the balls to face me if I told you I was pissed at you before." She rolled her eyes. "You’re pathetic, you are, Mikey. You really are. Get out."

And he did.

Although he didn't ever quite to feel quite so hollow, quite so empty, quite so alone, and quite so desolate upon Alicia's doorstep, thrown out, having lost her forever, and so he did the only thing he could, resort to his number two, Pete Wentz, and simply pretend that he just hadn't been slapped in the face by a netball player.

'I chose you'

Send.

And now it had been proven: in text, in print, in writing, that Mikey Way was a terribly good liar, and really, just a terrible person.

-


	19. The Most Likely Place To Get Unintentionally Buttfucked

Patrick noticed a lot, and perhaps that was a good thing - just to watch, just to listen and pick up everything, but Patrick knew he well preferred the comfort of naivety. It wasn't even a talent - anything magical or special; Patrick was just quiet, and when he didn't talk, he listened.

Sometimes he wished he could just turn it off - turn it all off and not hear a thing, not know a thing and live complacent and confused in the dark as the world went on around him and he remained nothing but unaware, but he had really tried, and it seemed this was just how he was, and really, the more he thought about it, the more he came to realise that he'd only wanted this 'talent' of his to stop, to cease to exist, the very day he met Pete Wentz.

Pete was all words: all talk, and he never stopped, he never listened, and it wasn't that he didn't know - Pete knew a lot, it was just the knowledge he acquired through people and words - knowledge shared: secrets that weren't quite secrets anymore.

Patrick knew all the secrets that remained just as that and the things people only kept in their facial expressions and the things you noticed when you looked at people and they didn't think you noticed at all. Pete left all his secrets on his face; he was too much, because there was what he said, that still Patrick felt he should never know, and then what he didn't that cut Patrick apart like it was nothing.

And perhaps it did look like a perfect friendship, and perhaps that was what it used to be, because they were the opposite sides of a puzzle - pieces that only fitted with each other, but things were still very obvious once you rid yourself of the sophisticated fakeries of metaphor and looked at things straight - they were opposites.

Pete talked and Patrick listened.

Patrick knew everything about Pete, and Pete knew nothing about Patrick - not really. He knew things in the general kind of friendship way: when his birthday was, his favourite band, not to eat his mum's spaghetti - that kind of thing, but he knew nothing about what went on in Patrick's head: who he liked, who he cared for, and what thoughts he killed himself over everyday.

Because Pete never really talked about himself, and still Patrick knew everything - his face did the talking, and even when he wasn't there, he still just knew. Pete was kind of predictable, especially when you knew him as well as Patrick did, and that was exactly what left Patrick with the answer to a question that had slipped past everyone else entirely.

The park was empty apart from the three of them: Patrick, Ryan, and Frank (Brendon was in another state visiting relatives and considering shooting himself in the head.

"Where's Pete?" Ryan had directed the question at Patrick, as the ginger haired boy was indeed his best friend, and realistically had the best idea of knowing where Pete could possibly be.

Patrick only bit down on his bottom lip in response, shrugging a little, and generally keeping quiet, yet trying his best not to allude to the presence of a secret upon his lips, because Patrick knew where Pete was and he knew all too well.

"Where's Mikey? Not that I really want to see him all that much, but it's just us huh?" Ryan continued almost awkwardly into the silence; the question, this time, directed at Frank, being Mikey's best friend, yet this time Frank didn't have the answers, and Patrick did.

Patrick knew all too well. It was practically the same question - just phrased differently.

"Ray's with his brother - looking at universities and shit. Just because you didn't ask." Frank spoke up finally, the expression on his face alluding to nothing more than mild irritance. "Yeah, it's just the three of us." He continued after a moment, inhaling sharply as he tried his best not to think about his asshole of a not quite boyfriend and the very mess he'd thrown himself into and the text to a drug dealer sent barely ten minutes ago that was forever keeping him on edge.

"Yeah..." Ryan exhaled, almost feeling awkward without Brendon being there - they kind of came like a pair, always together, and Brendon definitely was the more confident of the two, leaving Ryan alone, and feeling like he didn't quite know what to say. "Is it bad to say that I miss Brendon, just after not having seen him for two days?"

"That just means you love him." Patrick voiced what he picked up upon this time, and Ryan could help but agree with a blush and a nod to follow. "Maybe that's not a bad thing at all."

"Maybe?" Ryan asked, eyebrows raised as he considered being offended and effort it would take to be even marginally angry with someone like Patrick.

"Depends on whether he feels the same." Patrick exhaled loudly, all thoughts in his head running to just that one fucking asshole that didn't even need to be named anymore - after all, his name was practically permanently imprinted upon Patrick's mind. "If he doesn't, well, then that sucks and you're screwed, because there's really nothing you can do when it comes to love and people's hearts."

"Gee went back to the guy... the guy, who, raped him, a week or so ago now... he hasn't made contact with me or anyone and no one knows why and everyone's shit scared of this guy, and basically everything's so fucking messed up because I haven't the slightest clue as to why." Frank broke the silence with a bombshell that left wide eyes as he spoke.

"Why would anyone go back to someone who did something like that to them?" Ryan was the first to speak, eyes open wide as he watched Frank's jittery demeanour and the eyes to his cellphone in his pocket every few seconds, like a thirteen year old girl, awaiting a reply from her crush, except this was all far more messed up, and Frank was awaiting a reply from a drug dealer, and out of all the fact, the drug dealer part was the only thing Patrick didn't exactly pick up on.

"Loads of reasons. If things were simple and easy like they are in fairytales then we'd all be married to our soulmates and happily so at the age of eighteen." Patrick explained, meeting Frank's eyes momentarily before the seventeen year old seemed to go off like a firework at his text notification tone, pulling his cellphone out like his life depended on it.

"That sounds kind of boring, actually." Ryan mused, his words in connotation to Patrick's statement, which Frank had already forgotten in the mess of text messages that he shouldn't be receiving and other things generally in the category of things that he shouldn't be doing.

"I have to go. To go meet someone." He exhale, glancing between the pissed off expressions of his two friends. "It's important, he stressed."

And Patrick had to bite back his words once more, because it would have just been too easy to go 'I know'.

-

"I feel like a fucking thirteen year old." Pete announced, perhaps not even to Mikey who sat beside him, but his bedroom wall opposite, of the house that they had double-checked was empty this time.

The previous encounter had both sparked and ruined things; things had gone to absolute shit with Pete and his dad, but Pete reckoned that getting Mikey to say something like that, to chose him and to get this far caused just about the best feeling he'd ever known.

"Why?" Mikey eventually broke the silence, his hand running to entwine with Pete's as he held on far too tight, because maybe even if Mikey lied all the time, in no way did it mean he was all that good at it, especially when it came to lying to people like Pete, because maybe, despite how little he wanted to admit something like this, perhaps Pete meant something to him, and perhaps that was what made lying quite so hard.

Mikey Way was never any good with emotions.

"Because we're sneaking around like this and you're not supposed to love me and I'm not supposed to love you, but we do, and we kiss, and we fuck, and we pretend it didn't happen sometimes - sometimes to ourselves and sometimes only to other people, and honestly I feel like within a week you'll end up faking your death, I'll poison myself and then you'll stab yourself in sorrow."

Mikey chuckled as the subject of Pete's rather elaborate and slightly pretentious analogy finally hit him. "You'd totally be Juliet, though."

"Uh? Excuse me?" Pete exclaimed, unsure whether to be offended or not, his eyebrows raised in his boyfriend's direction. "What do you mean? I am the most manly man you will ever see."

"Eyeliner." Mikey rolled his eyes, turning to Pete and pushing his fringe from his eyes and smudging his boyfriend's raccoon rings of eyeliner a little. "How's it going raccoon boy?" Pete shook his head in response, kissing Mikey to shut him up, because that always seemed to work better than actually picking a fight with someone as arrogant as Mikey.

"So we're boyfriends now." Pete almost reminded himself allowed as they pulled away, his gaze drawn away from Mikey, as he still couldn't quite look him in the eye, for fear of rejection at a situation such as this.

"I guess." Mikey shrugged, blushing a little as he pulled his knees up his chest and tried not to think about Gee's first boyfriend and the way his parents had reacted, and the way they would react if they ever found out about this, and yet somehow, as much as that all scared him, Pete was still worth the threat of his parents disowning him.

"That's what you said to my dad." Pete reminded him, eyes narrowed, as he got ready to slap his not quite boyfriend across the face, just in case things happened to go sour.

"Yeah, I guess we are then." Mikey confirmed, and it was weird how six little fucking insignificant words could make Pete feel like he was flying, because really, it wasn't the words, it was who said them, and what they meant, because 'I love you' can mean a million things, you've just got listen and look for the ones that matter.

"Good, because I totally messed everything up with my dad for you." Pete chuckled, leaning against his definitely boyfriend, and pulling Mikey's arm around his shoulders, because it seemed the younger of the two Way brothers was just as romantically inadequate as his brother.

"My parents would actually just disown me on the spot if they ever found out about us, and that maybe I like boys, but only certain boys, maybe only you... I don't get sexuality, Pete, especially mine - not at all." Mikey exhaled, wondering just how his mother would chose to exorcise him when the time came to it.

"I think you're demisexual, Mikey. Which has nothing to do with Demi Lovato and far more to do with getting to know someone before you actually start to have romantic feelings for them." Pete met Mikey's gaze, who only nodded in response, accepting what his boyfriend said to be the truth, because really Mikey didn't have the slightest clue.

"Anyway, if things fuck up with your parents, then you've got Gee - you've got a fucking gay brother with a house who could maybe tolerate you enough to ensure that you're not homeless." Pete chuckled a little as he spoke, however Mikey didn't, his face turning a ghostly pale shade instead, and instantly Pete knew that something was up, and it most certainly wasn't his dick.

"I got spiteful when I found out about Gee and Frank, and oh dear god did I do something fucking stupid-"

"Mikey..." Pete exhaled, wondering whether he was at all prepared for just how bad this would have to be for Mikey to actually recognise that he'd committed an injustice. "What did you do?"

"Gee most certainly hates me now, because I gave his parents details on how to contact me - like his address and number and, I just wanted to fuck him up - I just wanted to make him sorry, but now they've probably gone over there and ruined his whole fucking life, dear god, I've messed up, because all he can do is just get out of there and run, live somewhere else, but I've completely screwed over everything he had just because I was fucking pissed off-"

"Mikey-"

"Why the fuck does it have to be my fucking brother? Maybe it would be easier if he was just gay, but why? He's an asshole-"

"Because when we're in love, it doesn't seem to matter that the person we love is a complete fucking assholes at all." And Pete caught Mikey's eyes at exactly the right moment.

-

They had agreed to meet in the park, in public, and even before it had even begun, Frank already knew this was most definitely the worst idea that he'd ever had, especially if they ended up getting arrested, because that was the one thing his mum had specified for him not to do, and it was Frank's mum, so what she told you not to do, you really shouldn't do.

However, it seemed that Frank Iero was an idiot, or at the very least, he was feeling like one today, and it was definitely showing through in his decision to meet with the most incompetent drug dealer known to man kind in a public place, and talk about something private that could very easily ruin several people's lives, including his own, especially his own.

Frank was screwed, basically, and perhaps this was just a fact that he'd grown almost uncomfortably acquainted with, especially on the ten minutes walk it took to get to the other side of the park with the suspicious looking woods, and generally the place that was nicknamed as the most likely place to get unintentionally buttfucked this side of the Atlantic.

Frank sometimes thought that maybe he did far too much for this asshole of a boyfriend he had, especially when he just ran off to his ex-boyfriend without a word to anybody, and then continued to not allow anyone to contact him, even just to ask him what was wrong.

But then again, Gee Way, wasn't just anybody, and that really had been established by now, because Frank Iero most certainly didn't go to lengths like this, even for himself, Jamia, maybe, and only because she'd end up blackmailing him into it, but whatever, this was still sudden death, and he reckoned that Gee ought to be at least a little grateful.

"So, Frankie, what's up, huh?" Bob staggered into their meeting spot, tripping over his own feet and evidently severely drunk and Frank already knew that this was going to go absolutely perfectly, and it wasn't just a question as to whether he'd end up punching Bob or himself in face. "Need some weed? Need some pills?"

"Weed and a favour." Frank exhaled, wondering if it would actually be better for him to just storm in there in comparison to this shitty ass plan that Bob was absolutely going to fuck up spectacularly, without question.

"What kind of favour?" Bob asked as he rummaged around in his pocket for what Frank hoped was weed, simply because if he wasn't, Bob would have failed on all levels of being a drug dealer, and then, he really would have nothing left for him in life.

"A favour involving your good friend Bert McCracken, and my boyfriend." Perhaps Frank stressed the 'my' a little too much, as Bob jerked his head up in what vaguely resembled shock, but Bob was usually so stoned his facial expressions generally tended to reflex nothing other than his current level of hunger, and therefore, Frank shrugged it off and continued, albeit a little reluctantly, under Bob's gaze. "Gee's there and I don't know why, and he hasn't spoken to me at all, and I want you to find out why for me."

"How do I do that?" Bob asked, handing Frank the weed in what was probably the least discreet manner possible - luckily, nobody was listening and the seventeen year old pocketed it quickly, being far more discreet than the bearded drunk he was trusting to sort his life out - yeah, Frank was pretty stupid.

"By going round to Bert's with some stupid excuse regarding getting drunk and casually asking him what my boyfriend is doing in his house."

"And why can't you do that?" Bob asked, clearly still not quite getting it, but with the level of alcohol in his system right now, Frank couldn't say that he entirely blamed him right now.

"Because he's pretty much just stolen my boyfriend, and kind of hates me anyway, and will probably punch me on sight, and you know, you're a mutual friend-"

"We're friends?" Bob exclaimed, his eyes lighting up like those of a lost puppy, and just this once, Frank couldn't help but feel sorry for the bearded idiot he was blackmailing into sorting out his train wreck of a relationship just so he didn't run the risk of being punched by his least favourite member of society.

"Yeah, of course we are, Bob." Frank assured him, trying his best not think about how much he was fucking everything up for just one second.

"Really?" His eyes continued to light up as his face fell into a borderline ridiculous grin. Frank nodded in response and Bob practically died of delight. "Then yes of course I will - you know, friends do favours for each other and all of that shit!"

"Yes, of course. They do." Frank smiled in response, of course, his far less enthusiastic, but at least he was trying. "Just try not to get so stoned that you can't even remember what he told you in the first place, okay?"

"Of course, of course." Bob pushed it off like Frank's accusation was nothing but preposterous - it most certainly was not.

Frank jumped a little at the sound of his text tone, and pulled his cellphone out in response, ensuring that Bob didn't awkwardly lean over the screen and casually invade his privacy, not that there wasn't much about him that everyone didn't know after Mikey had found about him and Gee.

However, with Ryan's text, he certainly had worse things to think about.

Something's up, Frank, and you're going to tell me.

Well, fuck.

-

"Are you going to sit there and drink all day?" Bert didn't even expect the twenty five year old to even pay him any attention, let alone gift him with the privilege of an answer to his begging question.

"Yes." Was the elusive answer which Bert had so eagerly sought after, and needless to say, he didn't actually find himself all that surprised: Gee was stubborn, and if anyone knew that, it was him.

"I'm not cleaning up your puke when it goes everywhere tomorrow - I tell you that now." Bert rolled his eyes, lighting a cigarette as he joined Gee on the sofa, watching the twenty five year old almost cautiously and wondering if he was already drunk enough to complete disregard the polite thing to do - which was of course offer Bert some of his own vodka, but whatever, maybe he'd make an exception just this wasn't, because although he didn't quite know what was up, Gee was most certainly not okay.

"Maybe I just won't move, and then it won't go everywhere - only here." Gee mused, his voice in the kind of tone he'd use when speaking to himself and Bert began to wonder just what else he'd taken and on what level he'd actually acknowledged his presence, or whether he was just some weirdass voice to Gee right now.

Perhaps it was getting to the point where Bert ought to tell him to stop and calm down and think about things and act rationally, but Bert didn't and Bert wouldn't, because he may be many things, but at the very least, he wasn't a hypocrite.

"Talk to me, Gee." Bert murmured, fingers running through Gee's dark hair, and for once, the twenty five year old didn't quite seem to mind, so Bert entangled his fingers in the black locks, wishing that he'd never have to let go, because although it seemed to be widely ignored, he loved Gee too, he cared about Gee too, but Bert was a messed up person, and he had a messed up way of showing it.

"There's nothing to say." His words were slurred, and with such a blatant lie, there wasn't even a chance that he was going to take him seriously in the first place.

"Something's happened with you and Frank, hasn't it?" He asked, dodging around the subject like it was a minefield, and for him, it might as well just be. "You wouldn't be here, with me, if it hadn't. He hates me and you love him, and yet you're here - he wouldn’t like that."

"We're fine..." Gee murmured, his voice coming to a slow, as he found himself falling into the realisation that perhaps they weren't quite so fine after all, and that perhaps it was his fault, but he was definitely far too drunk to deal with something like that right now.

And for what Gee would consider luck, Bert never got the chance to further his carefully interrogation, as the doorbell rang, sounding throughout the house, and it certainly didn't look like Gee even heard it, nevermind actually considering getting up to answer it.

Bert even wondered if Gee had even noticed the passing of time from when Bert got up to when Bert returned with a slightly flustered looking Bob Bryar, because the twenty five year old hadn't moved at all, and in fact, the only notion that he was even alive, was the heaving of his chest as he proceeded in the menial process of inhale, exhale, and repeat.

"Gee, Bob's here." Bert felt awkward for the first time in his life, because this wasn't Gee, and something was wrong, and he couldn't help but feel like it had something to do with what he'd let slip to him out of nothing but the foolish kind of selfishness last night.

"Can I have some-"

"No..." Bert shook his head and hating himself moments after, because this wasn't him not at all, and he wasn't supposed to care, but he did, and it was slowly but surely ruining him. "Look, Gee, I just think you've had enough shit already today."

"I'm here to talk, not sell you drugs, actually." Bob confirmed, secretly biting down on his bottom lip, because he knew that he was most definitely just going to fuck absolutely everything up with absolutely everyone.

"Well, that's a first."

"What's going on with you and Gee?" Bob asked, sitting down beside Gee and his stash of vodka, almost awkwardly, his words directed at Bert, because Gee barely even looked sober enough to speak right now.

"What do you mean?"

"What's he doing here? Are you two- What's going on? I... just... want to know-" Fuck, Bob was most definitely fucking this up, and spectacularly so.

"Frank sent you, didn't he?" Bert exhaled, sitting down between the two of them, and Bert's 'oh fuck I'm dead' face said it all.

"N-No, no, what- n-no... no-"

"He's worried about his boyfriend, it's fine." Bert glanced at Gee, wondering if he was actually picking up anything from the conversation, and when it was made apparent that he wasn't, Bert continued, "I'm worried about his boyfriend too. He moved here because there was something with his parents, like his brother told them where he was- and yeah, he's not good with them."

"What do I say to him though?" Bob asked, shaking a little, because he'd totally screwed up. "He's going to be pissed if he knows that you know that he sent me."

"Tell him to come over, we can talk. I don't hate him, not really - I barely know him." Bert sighed, taking one last glance at Gee. "And, tell him that he should be worried about his boyfriend.

-

"I'm worried about Gee." Lindsey's eyes were set upon the window and her gaze somewhere out far into the distance, and Jamia had never once been jealous of a window and the shitty city skyline beyond.

"We all are." Jamia exhaled, attempting to reassure her girlfriend, having accepted that Lindsey was just far too upset for any kind of sexual activities right now, which was of course a real bummer, but Jamia wasn't an asshole, so she was going to respect that.

"It just makes no sense, I mean, he was kind of trying to cope with everything with drugs, and of course I didn't like that, but I... I don't understand why he'd go back to the guy who... who... did what he did to him, just because that guy's enough of an asshole to let him snort away his problems." Lindsey buried her head in Jamia's shoulder, reckoning that she'd truly been gifted with such an easy relationship with Jamia - the only actual difficultly being the age difference, but Jamia was mature enough for it not to matter at all, and after having lived with Gee Way, even a toddler would seem like a mature adult to Lindsey in comparison.

"Gee never quite makes all that much sense to anyone, now does he?" Jamia sighed, throwing her head back as she considered the situation and then just how badly Frank was evidently coping with it. "Frank's the only one who even had the slightest of ideas and even he's clueless now - I just don't get it, I just don't."

"Frank's not coping well with it either, is he?" Lindsey assumed: the assumption not at all hard to make, because, well the two cared an awful lot about one another, and Gerard had pretty much just entirely messed that up, and for a reason, which no one could even begin to comprehend.

"He's doing something about it... I mean, Ryan's just texted me saying that he's suspicious and worried because Frank's just walked off but he's with Patrick, who's also in an extremely emotional state, and wow, everything's so messed up, Lindsey..."

"Look, I'm just so happy I have you, okay?" Lindsey forced her face into a smile, pressing a kiss to her girlfriend’s lips, and letting herself pretend that everything was okay, for just one minute. "I love you, okay?"

"Love you too." Jamia mumbled into her shoulder, pocketing her cellphone and looking back up her girlfriend. "Patrick thinks no one knows. But I know, and maybe it's arrogant to say, but I just, I know things, remember? And he thinks no one knows, but I do, and it hurts me just to know and just to see how oblivious everyone else is, and then to keep my mouth shut out of respect for the poor guy-"

"What do you know?"

"He's totally fucking head over heels for his best friend - that Pete guy, who's fucking himself over by chasing after Mikey Way like he has some sort of death wish or something, and of course, Patrick doesn't have the heart to tell him, but I can see that everyday I see him, he's just more and more broken. He's a shy, quite, nice to everyone kind of guy, and like this, he's killing himself over this, and one day he's just going to snap; everything's just going to fall about and everything's just going to go to shit, and because Pete's screwed him over so many times, Patrick's going to make sure that it's a good one." Jamia exhaled, eyes turned to the wall once more. "I'm worried about him, and I want to talk to him about this, but we're not close at all, we've barely even spoke once - Frank's not even that close to him."

"Who is he close to?" Lindsey asked, biting down on her fingernails as she considered the predicament of the poor Patrick kid that she doubted she'd never met, yet cared about unimaginably, because Lindsey was just that kind of person - she cared.

"Pete." Jamia exhaled, shaking her head as she came to a horrible realisation. "Pete and only Pete - Pete's his best friend, and Pete, despite being an asshole has several close friends, and I'm just so fucking scared for the day when Patrick just snaps, just breaks, just gives up, because is most certainly not going to get off lightly."

"So Pete doesn't even have a clue that Patrick's head over heels for him and he's busy chasing after some asshole who'll never really care as much about Pete as Pete does about him?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Jamia pulled her cellphone out of her pocket, focusing on the second text - this one from Frank. "Frank's texted me - something about Bob, and then something about needing to get high, and then needing my company."

"Jesus, it's like boys know nothing more to do than drown their sorrows in substances that'll ensure they don't remember them in the morning." Lindsey exclaimed, pulling Jamia to her chest. "I'm so glad that we're good - you're so beautiful, I barely even deserve you-"

"Shut up," Jamia rolled her eyes, tapping out a reply to her best friend. "I'm telling him that I'm busy - I'm sure Bob would be more than happy to get high with him."

"You're busy?" Lindsey raised her eyebrows, a smirk tugging at her lips without a shred of shame. "Who with?"

"You, idiot." Jamia rolled her eyes, throwing her head down into Lindsey's lap, the older of the two proceeding to play with her girlfriend's hair. "We're busy - together."

"Doing what, Miss Nestor?" Lindsey let her face fully break out into a smirk as Jamia pulled herself up to connect their lips: lipstick smudging everywhere, and with far too few fucks to give.

"Well, Miss Ballato - I'd like to point out that your bedroom is that way."

"And what are you proposing with that?"

"Oh, honey, I think you know."

-


	20. Bert McCracken - The Bane Of My Existence

Brendon hated being in the dark, and he hated knowing that something was wrong, and he hated when that despite that knowledge, he still couldn't do a thing about it, and really just to top it off, it had to be Ryan, and it had to be the one person that he cared about the most.

He hated that, and somehow, with all that hate brewing up inside him, it just had to go somewhere, and on this unfortunate occasion, that somewhere, just happened to be the silent boy sat down on his bed, knees pulled up to his chest and not a word of any worth leaving his lips.

"Just fucking tell me what's wrong, Ryan." It was more demanding and far more abusive than Brendon had intended, but he was far too caught up in the moment to ever consider going back on his words. "Please." He added, almost like an afterthought, perhaps somewhere near an apology, but not quite.

"It doesn't matter." Ryan sighed out, biting down on his fingernail, before hazarding a glance up at his boyfriend. "Really." And Ryan lied through the weight on his shoulders, because really, it did matter, and even if it didn't directly affect him, the weight was a lot to bear, and this was the weight shared, so really Ryan just couldn't fathom how this had been kept and how this weight had been balanced on one person's shoulders for such a long time.

And it broke his heart a little, and as much as he would like to share that weight with Brendon, he couldn't, because despite how little he wanted to admit it, Brendon was hardly the sensitive type and just wouldn't understand. Then again, there was the fact that it was a secret, and the main thing about secrets was that they stayed that way - secret.

Ryan liked to think he was a good friend, and Ryan liked to think that he was trustworthy, and he didn't particularly like lying to himself, so this was the way it had to be.

"If it matters to you, Ryan, then it fucking matters me." Brendon sighed out, pissed off beyond belief and trying his best just not to end up punching something right now - either the wall or his boyfriend, and really both would have explosively disastrous consequences.

If he punched the wall, his mum would kill him. If he punched Ryan, Ryan's mum would probably kill him, along with just about the rest of the population of the planet, because Ryan was adorable, and he was an asshole.

That was a fact that Brendon had grown to not only accept, but embrace, because really, there seemed to be very little that he could do about it, and he wasn't the petty optimistic type. Anyway, his ego had grown so big by this point that it really didn't even matter to him if anyone did happen to point out what an asshole he'd become, and all by simply embracing himself. In his mind, it was really just better than hating himself and hiding everything he was away.

He put the 'show' in freak show, and was proud to do so.

He didn't punched the wall, though, or Ryan, and he considered that his greatest achievement of the past twenty four hours, and resorted to sitting down beside his boyfriend instead - sat on his hands, because maybe he didn't quite trust himself, and really, who would?

Brendon wasn't good with secrets; he couldn't even keep his sexuality to himself, and ended up screaming it from the rooftops, and preparing himself for the disastrous consequences. It didn't seem to faze him though - everything ended in disaster and the seventeen year old had figured that out by now.

"It somebody else's secret." Ryan finally opted for the closest to an explanation that he could get, exhaling loudly, and fixating his gaze upon the class photo from four years ago that was still hung on Brendon's wall, yet amusingly annotated with Brendon's rather crude and uncensored opinion of each member of the class, and really, Ryan was just glad that he wasn't acquainted with angsty fourteen year old Brendon Urie.

"But we're supposed to tell each other everything, aren't we?" Brendon asked, what was kind of a genuine question, because Brendon was hopeless when it came to this kind of thing. "I mean, that's how relationships work. I don't want us to end in disaster... Ryan, I want you to be the one thing that I get right, I- I fuck everything up." Brendon stopped himself, exhaling and silently counting to ten, but only getting as far as seven, before getting pissed off with himself and the therapist from four years ago that taught him the count to ten method, and then continuing regardless. "Secrets are poisonous, Ryan. Secrets killed my dad, and you know that."

"Brendon, I'm sorry, but I... look, it's not your fault, it's not my fault, it's not anyone’s fault that your dad killed himself." The silence that followed suggested to Ryan that perhaps he shouldn't have put it so bluntly, but it was too late for anything besides a mediocre apology now, and neither of them were really the type.

"But he should have told my mum that he was depressed and that he wanted to do it, and he should have told someone, gotten help or something, and he shouldn't have kept his own secret and let himself rot, and then it was my mum's secret that pushed his finger against the trigger - she wasn't supposed to get pregnant, and he wasn't supposed to have another fuck up kid to add to the fuck up family, and he wasn't supposed to die, and neither was that stupid fucking kid- fuck, Ryan just go, fuck... I, I fucked up again, and you shouldn't see me like this."

"But I love you, Brendon, and I don't care about mess and complications, and only about you." And Ryan placed his lips to Brendon's - cold and cracked, and still it didn't matter to Ryan at all, because everything seemed to fade away like static in the ten seconds in which their lips were connected and that they could to themselves that everything was okay.

"I love you too." Brendon broke the silence after two minutes and thirty six seconds, and yes, Ryan was counting - on Brendon's digital alarm clock on the beside table. "I'm sorry. Secrets are secrets and it doesn't matter."

"It does matter, Brendon." Ryan's voice was hoarse and this time nothing more than a whisper, because it mattered, and it mattered like fuck, because this a weight that he was struggling to bear, and in fact the only thing that was keeping him going strong was the thought of it being carried alone for so long. "But it doesn't have to matter to you, and it shouldn't, because it's not even my secret and it hurts."

"Okay." Brendon exhaled, swallowing the curse words that bubbled and brewed at the top of his throat. "That's fine. Secrets are secrets, and I just hope that this person is okay." Brendon lied again, and he didn't want to, but there are a million things in life that we don't want to do.

"He's not okay. He's just far too good at pretending, and keeping secrets it seems."

Because although Ryan reckoned he was trustworthy and could carry secrets to his grave, he knew that he was nothing in comparison to Patrick and the secret that he'd now shared, because this was one that you didn't take to your grave, this was the kind of secret that took you to your grave.

No one ever seemed to notice or listen to Patrick Stump quite enough, especially not Pete, and he was the one person that mattered to Patrick like no one else did.

And that was how Ryan Ross learned that there were some secrets that it just hurt less to know.

-

"You know... everything's really fucking weird now, Patrick." Pete a top some random-ass hill outside of town with his bestfriend, or perhaps ex-bestfriend, depending which perspective you chose to look at it from.

"Yeah..." Patrick exhaled, his eyes focused on the horizon: watching the sunset like it was some kind of spectacular unique event that didn't happen every fucking day since the creation of the universe. "I guess it is."

"Like, I mean.. Mikey and me... that's just something I would have never seen coming, like actually happening, like fuck, I can't believe he can actually stop being a homophobic asshole for more than five minutes at a time." Pete exclaimed, and Patrick just had to crack a smile at what his best friend didn't know, because Patrick had seen this coming from like thirty fucking miles off.

"Me neither, to be honest." The less emo of the two sighed, pulling his gaze away from the stupid fucking orange tinted skies of dusk and met Pete's eyes, and tried to figure out what the hell they were at all, because this certainly didn't feel like friendship, not anymore, not when Patrick did the caring for both of them.

"But, he's like... a really good boyfriend really, and that's so weird, I mean, he's actually a really nice guy when you get past the 'bigoted asshole' part." Pete's words were strewn with a certain kind of nonchalance that sent Patrick's realistic approach into laughter. "What?"

"Doesn't the 'bigoted asshole' part make up like ninety percent of his personality?" Patrick raised his eyebrows, offering a more than slightly controversial comment, and really, Patrick wasn’t the hating kind, and no matter how much he tried not to hate Mikey Way, it just didn't seem to work at all, and really, it was killing him more than anything.

"Patrick?" Pete explained, eyes widening, almost astounded at the fact that it seemed he didn't quite know his bestfriend as well as he thought he did. "Something's bothering you, isn't it? Come on, tell me. I'm your bestfriend - you can tell me."

But Patrick couldn't and he'd known that from the first day he started digging this grave of his; the grave affectionately titled 'falling in love with Pete Wentz'.

"I can't." His words came from his lips far too fast and with little consideration for the way the affected the boy sat beside him. "Pete, I just can't."

"Whatever happened to us being bestfriends and nothing ever coming between that, huh?" Pete asked, looking at Patrick like he didn't quite know who the ginger kid with glasses was anymore: totally oblivious to the fact that he was the one that had changed.

"Mikey. Mikey happened." Patrick cut straight to the chase, shaking his head as he came to the realisation that maybe he really just didn't care anymore, and really, it was such a liberating feeling.

"What? You're jealous that I actually have someone to spend time with that isn't you?" Pete exclaimed, brows furrowed and pulling away from Patrick a little. "What the fuck? Everyone fucking loves you Patrick, because you're so nice and so sweet, and I'm just the fuck up who's fucking messed up in the head and an annoying asshole - do you even know how messed up I am?"

"Yeah, Pete, everyone loves me, except you." Patrick sighed, getting up to leave, only for Pete to stand up beside him, grab his hand and stop his bestfriend in his tracks.

"Patrick what are you saying? Of course I love you, of course I care - I'm your best-friend." It seemed Pete Wentz was a stupidly naive motherfucker, and he totally didn't get it at all. "You deserve a better bestfriend, Patrick, I'm just a fuck up, I can't do anything- I..."

"You can." Patrick exhaled, catching his best friend’s gaze and wondering just what he'd give for Pete to look at him in the same way that he did to Mikey. "You stopped cutting, you're a week clean now."

"I never even told you... how? How do you know that?" Pete asked, brows furrowed as he stepped away from his bestfriend in an odd sense of confusion - kind of like the one you get when you just know that something's just off in someway.

"Because you've worn short sleeves for the past four days and you told me that your cuts took three days to heal into scars which you could cover with foundation." Patrick reeled off the facts like it was nothing, and Pete began to realise that maybe there were things that Patrick knew about him that he didn't even know about himself. "Mikey helped you, and you're happy because you love him, and I'm happy for you, Pete, I really am."

"But?" It seemed it was Pete's turn to guess what his best friend’s next words were.

"But... I can't be happy for you all the time, because I'm not happy for myself, not really, not at all." And maybe that was just as close as Patrick Stump would ever get to really admitting to Pete Wentz how he truly felt about him.

"Please just tell me, Patrick... I'm your bestfriend and you just can't keep things to yourself, especially when they hurt like that."

"But you can. I can, and I did for so long... but don't worry, because I'm not anymore." Patrick exhaled, taking one last glance as the orange-pinks of dusk faded away into dark blues and then blacks of night-time. "If you really want to know, how about you ask Ryan why I'm upset, and ask him why I can never tell you."

And surely, that was a recipe for disaster, but the perfect kind - Patrick's own planned out demise, and he'd watch and laugh as it unravelled and he ruined his own life, because maybe, just maybe, poor, little Patrick Stump couldn't take it anymore.

-

And oh fuck, Frank knew this was a bad idea from the get go, but it was either this or confronting the 'marked as unread' text from Ryan, because Frank couldn't even explain this mess to himself, let alone anyone else and let alone Brendon Urie's boyfriend.

Sure, Frank didn't have that much of a problem with Ryan at all, but Frank and Brendon's friendship was questionable, especially when it came to trust and the outspoken asshole Frank knew Brendon Urie to be.

But turning up at Bert fucking McCracken's house on advice from Bob, demanding to see his boyfriend, was not the best of ideas, especially when Bert hated his guts, and Gee hadn't spoken to him for near enough two weeks now, and it was driving him fucking crazy, because he loved that piece of shit, and no matter how hard he tried, this was just a situation that he couldn't rule Bert's involvement out of.

And yet, what he couldn't quite piece this together at all, because why would anyone with a brain go back to someone who did that to them? He didn't want to call Gerard stupid, but by this point, he was honestly getting awfully close.

"Iero?" Frank jumped a little as the door opened and his eyes were met by none other than the ones of the absolute bane of his existence - Bert McCracken. "Was thinking you wouldn't show up, actually..." His words dwindled off, catching the seventeen year old's gaze as both parties continued to lie to both each other and themselves through devilish glares: made only to conceal the part of them inside that was ready to go off like a ticking time bomb with the anxiety of the situation they were buried so deep in.

"Well, I'm fucking here now, aren't I?" Frank sighed, rolling his eyes and somewhat reluctantly following what arrogance would call his 'arch nemesis', and not just some guy with a really screwed up crush on his boyfriend, inside.

"Yeah, so... I guess Gee wants to see you." Bert's voice was unnervingly quiet and almost nervous as Frank followed the guy into the living room, the seventeen year old's eyes only widening as he laid his eyes upon what he could barely call his boyfriend anymore.

Gee was sat upon the sofa: eyes vacant and pupils dilated to a worrying extent, his gaze distant and Frank was unsure as to whether he'd actually acknowledge his presence or not. His hair was greasy and pushed back - full of tangles and the dye was fading. Hell, he was wearing fucking sweatpants and looked as if eyeliner hadn't touched his face in weeks. And then there was the vodka on the table beside him and the sickeningly pungent smell of dope that left nothing to the unknown.

"What the fuck have you done?" Frank's words were directed at Bert and there was no question about that fact, yet somehow, Bert was still caught off guard, glancing at the seventeen year old weirdly as he sat down on the opposite end of the sofa to the still unresponsive twenty five year old.

"Frank, look, he was in this state when he came to me-"

"What the fuck do you mean by that?" Frank jumped to questionable conclusions within in instants and Bert raised his eyebrows in response, cracking a small smirk.

"I mean, when he arrived on my doorstep, Frankie. Just to clarify, I did not fuck your boyfriend." Bert rolled his eyes, shaking his head a little, gesturing to the space on the sofa between him and Gee. "Sit down."

"Yes, apart from when you ra-"

"Frank, please. Look, do you not even have any idea as to what's happened with him recently and why he's here?" Bert asked, only to be met with a completely blank expression from the seventeen year old.

"Ask Mikey." Gee broke the silence in a monumental manner, reminding Frank of his presence in an almost unnerving manner.

"Gee, seriously, what's going on?' Frank jumped at the first words he'd heard from Gee in weeks now. "Come on, please... I love you."

"Mikey told my fucking 'parents' where I was and you can guess that they weren’t particularly nice to me were they, and I fucking had to get away, and I..." His words faded away into nothing, his gaze going distant again, before he suddenly fell back into reality and speech, like not a word strewn from his lips was quite real at all. "I had to get away and Bert is the only person with a house that I'll be let into, and I just... drugs aren't good for me at all, but it's the only thing that stops me wanting to shove a bullet through my brain... at least temporarily, anyway."

"Gee, fuck, please..." Frank was speechless and simply pulled his boyfriend into a hug, and trying his best not to cry in front of Bert fucking McCracken. "Fuck, I love you, so much, we all do, please why didn't you at least talk to us?"

And it was then that Bert glanced at Gee in a way that made Frank's stomach resort to nothing more but thousands of backflips. "I... couldn't face you... I... I'm a coward."

"No, you're my fucking boyfriend and I love you and I... you haven't fucking spoken to me in like two weeks- what the fuck, Gee?"

"Granted, I reckon there was nothing more than five minutes of it that he spent sober." And at that point, Frank really considered killing Bert McCracken.

"And you let him? Of course, you fucking let him... what the fuck, why? Lindsey would never-"

"Of course she would never and guess what? He ran the fuck away from her and that, didn't he?"

And it was amidst our screaming voices that Gee slipped away to his bedroom and neither of the two noticed until many minutes had passed and the silence beside Frank felt just a little too silent, and just a little too empty.

-

"I'm sorry... I shouldn't have started yelling." Frank whispered to his words to his boyfriend: sat on his bedroom floor, crossed legged and glassy eyed, and really the seventeen year old was both eager and terrified to know exactly what he'd taken to end up in such a state.

"It's okay, it's just everything - all a mess and all at once, and I can't breathe air anymore, only nicotine, and I'm dizzy all the time, and I'm puking my guts away like it's something you just do when you get up in the morning." Gee spaced out again for a few moments, before turning his head and catching Frank's gaze, and even passing his boyfriend what he hoped would turn out to be a smile. "I can't... I mean what use is a train wreck like me to such wonderful people like all of you?"

"We fucking care and worry about you, Gee, and I love you." Frank promised him, and instead of uttering those three words in response, Gee leaned in and pressed his lips against Frank's, and he tasted like vodka and nicotine, and Frank didn't even care because he'd missed this and he'd missed it far too much.

"I can't go back to where my parents can find me again, though." He uttered, head leaned against Frank's chest as the two arranged themselves so that they were curled up together, and so that nothing else in the world seemed to matter. "I can't do that."

"Okay, you can stay here if that's what you want, Gee, but please talk to people about this, like you could have died and none of us would have known." That brought the twenty five year old to silence and for a few moments, Frank reckoned that he'd said far too much. 

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I... can it just be us for a few days though, because, fuck... I'm scared.." Gee admitted, his words muffled against Frank's shirt. "I'm scared of what people will think and say, because I went back to the guy that... that... he... and it's not.... weakness or anything, I just knew that he'd be the only person that would give me somewhere to stay long term, and he's been nicer of recent, like he hasn't been any trouble at all and he's apologised, so maybe I-" Gee stopped, catching his boyfriend's disbelieving gaze and stopping his tracks. "Maybe not... look, he hasn't done anything and I'm, I'm okay - I promise."

"It's fine, I love you, Gee." Frank whispered into his boyfriend's hair: roots growing out and ruining the pretty little princess look he had gone on completely. "What's with the sweatpants, though? I miss you in skirts."

"I miss me in skirts too, but I don't want to risk... with Bert, I... and I, I'm barely myself anymore-"

"Nonsense, you're you and you're perfect." Frank smiled, pressing a kiss to the bridge of his boyfriend's nose. "How about I get you out of those sweatpants, and maybe your clothes entirely, huh?"

Gee bit down into his bottom lip, blushing a little and hiding his head in Frank's shoulder, "I... don't... I.. I-"

"Gee, if you don't want to then that's fine, okay?" Frank caught his boyfriend's gaze. "It was just a suggestion, and if you're not in the mood then that's absolutely fine. What do you want to do?"

Gee sat there for a few minutes, just thinking - either about Frank's question or just how his response had been in comparison to Bert's.

"Can you just talk? I like listening to your voice, and I want to hear more about your life and less about mine."

"Well..." Frank exhaled, wondering just what on earth had actually happened in his miserable little existence during the last two weeks that his boyfriend had made himself absent from. "Pete and Mikey got together, like properly, and they're happy, I guess, like Mikey actually started referring to Pete as his 'boyfriend' and he's over the moon about that, of course, whereas, Patrick is not so much... I guess he's just a bit upset about losing his bestfriend to the asshole that spent forever teasing him in the first place, but with Patrick you never know, because he may be quite, but he sure as hell isn't simple."

"You sure that Patrick doesn't actually have feelings for Pete?" Gee piped up, raising one eyebrow as he met Frank's gaze - half way between confused and concerned.

"I don't think he's even gay, but really, I don't know... he doesn't tell people things, not even Pete, not secrets, not really... it's weird, but that's just Patrick, I guess." Frank shrugged, attempting to brush the thought off, but there was just something about it that ensured that it stuck and never quite left his head, because of course, that'd be simple and that'd be boring.

"If Patrick does like Pete, then really they should be together, because Mikey's an asshole, and he is going to fuck Pete over - whether it's sooner or later, and I don't understand how he can just be magically over his homophobia, especially when he's just gone and sold me out to his parents, huh?"

"Mikey doesn't particularly have it easy either, though." Frank went to point out, only to be met with such a gaze that he regretted bringing it up in the first place.

"I really couldn't give a flying fuck."

"He's your brother." Frank protested, unsure as to what he was even striving for here.

"Not really, seeing how many times I've been disowned already, so really, he's just an asshole here to ruin my life, huh?"

"Not quite. He'll always be your brother, Gee - that won't change."

-

Mikey Way and walking home across town combined three things that the seventeen year old despised: walking, home, and the town, needless to say, that combination of things would just about make a worthy pop punk song, and on the subject of pop punk, Pete hadn't shut up about how Mikey should start a band with him, and how his whole life is dedicated to playing bass. Mikey had politely declined, and made a mental note to avoid the subject in future, because the only time he'd seen his boyfriend's pupils that large was when he found taking drugs behind the art block.

It was however relatively easy to ignore the outside world and the idiots in it with a pair of headphones and his music on full volume, even if turning deaf did come as a result, then he wouldn't have to block out the idiots in the first place, but then of course he could never actually hear anything ever again, which could prove to be problematic, but perhaps he could cope, or perhaps the seventeen year old reckoned he had better things to think about than an alternate universe in which he was deaf.

But as soon as he did clear his mind, he began to notice things - stupid fucking things, like how he used to go here when he was seven and his parents hadn't disowned his brother and before neither of them were dating guys, and Mikey really considered if they'd go as far as to disown him too and render themselves devoid of children.

It was of course then that he came to notice something worse, and something that physically hurt as his eyes drew his gaze across it. Alicia's house, and it was unmistakeable, due to the amount of time Mikey spent in it, and really, it was weird to think how relationships worked, because he and Alicia had accomplished nothing, well nothing other than a 360 degree turn.

They'd started off as strangers, became friends, became boyfriend and girlfriend, became something, and then just soon as it started, it ended, and they were back to strangers again - nothing. He wondered if it'd be the same with Pete, and really, the thought scared him like hell, but with Pete, they'd never originally been strangers, just enemies, just hating one another, and the seventeen year old took a moment to consider ranking the possibilities in terms of severity, but he soon remembered that he had maths homework to go home to, and he didn't want to depress himself further than necessary.

Home was a weird thing for Mikey, alright, because home was just ignorance and blind faith in some God asshole, and ignoring the fact that he ever had an older brother, and that his older brother ever messed up everyone's lives, and that his older brother ever dated guys, and that his older brother even existed at all, and Mikey kind of hated that, and he wondered if that was what it would be like with his parents if they ever found out about him and Pete.

It was thoughts like that which scared the shit out of him, because he never wanted things to be like that, because he never was ever quite as brave as Gerard, and he never could put himself out there and live like his brother did, because Mikey was just a coward that cared far too much and far too little about what people thought about him - perhaps he just cared about the wrong people, and perhaps he was just scared, but he didn't think there was anything anymore that could tell him that what he felt for Pete was wrong or not real.

Maybe that was loving someone, but maybe Mikey wasn't quite brave enough to tackle that hurdle - at least not yet anyway; he was just focusing on juggling his life between maintaining what little friendships he had left, ensuring that his parents didn't disown him, and spending time with his boyfriend. Anyone that said Mikey Way had it easy was a liar.

Of course that wasn't to say that Mikey was a good person - he was an asshole, for sure, but he was trying and he would convince you to give him that at the very least.

As Mikey approached his house, he pulled out his earphones, pausing his music, and as he pushed the music player back into his jeans pocket, he came to notice two figures stood outside his front door - almost nervously presented, and until he got close enough to see their faces, the seventeen year old was nothing but clueless.

But of course as he did get closer, things only got far more complicated, and far more messed up, because the two figures outside Mikey's front door were none other than his 'non existent' brother, and Frank, who Mikey still wasn't quite sure as to whether he should be referring to as his friend, or Gerard's boyfriend.

But that barely mattered anymore, and what did was the fact that Gerard was ringing the doorbell, and it didn't take much brain matter to come to the conclusion that this was nothing more than a fucking recipe for disaster, and perhaps that was why it came to Mikey so easily.

-


	21. Pete Wentz: The Guy With More Eyeliner Than Friends

Alicia Simmons sometimes liked running away and getting away from everything: living another life for just a few hours, and for just a few hours she could pretend she was someone else completely, and that nothing of her shitty, confined, 'free' life mattered.

The subject of freedom even caused her to laugh, because she had nothing she could be free in; she was a seventeen year old, relatively attractive, relatively popular, Catholic school girl, and therefore, it seemed her life was everybody's business, and even furthermore so when it came to Mikey fucking Way - the nice guy with the stupid fucking fringe and the glasses just a little too far down her nose that people told her she shouldn't date, so she did.

But when she did, people started caring, and people fucking started acting like what happened in her private life with her boyfriend was at all their business, and when they broke up it seemed to be world fucking news. People wanted to know why, and when she told them nothing they just filled in the gaps for themselves, and that's how rumours, horrible, and in their hundreds were born.

But fuck, people telling her to get back with him, and that they were glad that she dumped, and that she was a bitch, and that he was an asshole, and that they were both shitty people, and that was why she needed to get away, and even if it was just a few hours, and even if she always wanted to run away forever, it was how she managed, and it was how she forgot things that had no place in a mind with some degree of sanity, because people were blind, and popularity really was nothing but a figurative prison cell.

And the worst, and yet somehow best, of all, was that no one, not a soul that cared knew why.

No one knew why, and no one knew what Mikey had done, and no one knew that Mikey Way with the fringe and the glasses had ruined his relationship with Alicia Simmons with the boobs and the miniskirts, and by fucking Pete Wentz, the guy with more eyeliner than friends. No one fucking knew that Alicia had pretty much caused someone to realise that they were gay.

She didn't know what to think, and really she just hated to know, because she could barely even fucking think straight with this mess, and she wasn't the kind of person that knew how to get some dope in five minutes flat, unlike Pete Wentz. Maybe that was what Mikey saw in him... or perhaps it was just his dick.

Fuck, perhaps Mikey was gay from the very start and Alicia just had to accept that she was nothing more than an experiment in sexuality to him, and she just had to accept that she was an experiment gone wrong, and an experiment abandoned, but not by the public, abandoned only by Mikey, and perhaps the one person she'd cared about.

Because Alicia didn't know what love was, but she reckoned that what she'd had with Mikey was pretty close. For starters, Mikey Way wasn't her usual type, you know, assholes who spend more time getting ready in the morning than their girlfriends.

So she'd concluded that perhaps the only way to get through this was to forget completely: to forget her friends, and Mikey, and Pete, and to forget them all.

Maybe she'd be gone longer than a few hours this time.

She couldn't tell anymore, anyway; she'd turned off her phone, and then thrown it in the lake, just like the first thing wasn't quite enough. At least now, no one could call her and no one could find her, and maybe too, they could forget about her as well in eventuality. Wouldn't that just be a dream?

But she wasn't dreaming, not this time, and her senses heightened by the handful of paracetamol she'd taken as she'd left her house, ensured of that, but it wasn't quite enough, and nothing was quite real, or quite worthwhile, not yet anyway. And she wasn't even the type to do things like this, she'd never taken pills or smoked anything before, and up until now, getting drunk once or twice a month had remained her greatest sin.

She didn't even know what part of town she was in anymore, and it was alien to the high income, Catholic household she'd walked out of, because this was all council houses and stated own old people bungalows, and houses without cars in the driveways, and this wasn't her at all, and yet she'd still prefer this downright realism to the life of plastic, but it wasn't just something you could snap your fingers and change about your life.

And she wouldn't even be here without the handful of paracetamol, because she'd been told a thousand times that she'd get murdered in this part of town, and maybe that was what caused the heart attack that came with the gentle tap on her shoulder.

"Fuck, I... get away, I-" She stopped at the grin cracking at the lips of a questionable, but over whelmingly calm face, and this guy, he didn't look bad, and he didn't look at all like Mikey, and he was smiling at her like he'd played a practical joke, and despite her panic and confusion, she found herself smiling, much like an idiot, back.

"You're the girl I saw chucking her phone in the lake at the park life half an hour ago- I didn't follow you, I... that sounded bad... I was there, left before you did, I guess, and walked a different way... I didn't follow you..." He shook his head, sighing, leaving Alicia to grin like an idiot, because there was something about the stupid blonde hair and the stupidly bright blue eyes that made this guy cute. "You, you, uhh... dropped like five dollars down the street." He awkwardly stretched his hand out, handing it back, only to be declined.

"Keep it, I've got... more..." Her tone faltered, soon realising that proclaiming the wealth she carried in an area like this, or really any area, wasn't exactly the best of ideas.

"Yeah, I guess, someone like you probably has." He shrugged, pocketing the five dollars without question, because well, he wasn't stupid, just nice to pretty girls, and a little stoned.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're a rich girl. What you're doing here, I don't understand, but whatever it is, it's none of my business and I'm not your fucking boyfriend... unless you'd like me to be, which of course can be arranged." Thankfully, she laughed at that, instead of slapping him across the face, which admittedly, happened more often than not. "I'm Bob, what about you?"

"Alicia." She smiled, having gathered that if this guy was a murderer, she'd probably be dead already. "I'm getting away from shit for a while... it's just too much at the moment."

Bob smirked at that. "Of course it is. What's happened, Alicia? Your butler brought you too little caviar this morning?"

"Fuck off, I'm not the queen." She rolled her eyes as Bob gasped in mock shock at the curse word. "Like I'd tell you anyway."

"Didn't know posh girls could swear. Anyway, would you tell me, if I offered you into my house in a totally friendly and non-predatory manner? I have tea and dope, also probably poptarts, but not caviar, unfortunately."

"What flavour poptarts?"

"Strawberry."

And that was how Alicia Simmons went home with a strange dude off the street in a bad part of town, and if she got murdered, at least her family had poptarts to sue.

-

But thing was that Patrick Stump never wanted to cause any trouble, and the thing was that Patrick Stump never wanted to be any bother, but it seemed like trouble and bother surrounded and strangled him in chokehold that he just couldn't escape, and of course, all in the form of Pete Wentz and the things he thought Patrick didn't know about.

Surely, it'd had been liberating telling Ryan, because suddenly he didn't feel quite so pathetic, and this didn't feel nearly as much like 'his stupid little secret' as it did before, which had to be good, because his mental stability was soaring, and even so much as to seek out further liberation, and perhaps even so in the form of breaking down everything about this 'stupid little secret' of his, and really, all that he needed to do to be able to breath steady again was for the secret to be anything but secret anymore.

And everything about this felt like a stupid decision, but Pete Wentz was a connoisseur of stupid decisions, and Mikey Way had to be his best, so really, something like this, Pete had to appreciate, and perhaps it would even top that arrogant little stupid decision list of his, because Patrick had this hatred for Mikey on Pete's behalf that it seemed that he felt more loyal to than Pete ever did.

But Patrick knew that Pete had liked Mikey from the start, anyway, even when he slept with Gabe - that was just Pete being a whore, and Patrick was more than happy to admit that, but everything was so much easier when it was still inside your head and in no way quite as real as it would be when it was spoken aloud, but Patrick had this awful, burning desire to prove the whole world wrong.

Because these days, Pete looked at him like he was that friend - the one that everyone left behind and served only as a second choice and a back up for when things fucked up, but Patrick had had it up to here, and just the cherry on the top of the fucking cake was Pete's stupid dopey face sat outside his house, home alone and with a little bag of weed, and fuck, he'd never even care like this, but maybe Patrick didn't care, and maybe this would be better if it was forgotten in the long term.

And maybe, it would be better if this wasn't done, and if Patrick simply chickened out and went home, but Patrick knew that somehow, proving the whole world wrong was the most important desire he'd even succumbed to, and he'd start with Pete Wentz.

"Pete." He addressed him simply as they came into eyeshot and Patrick ignored his best friend's gesture for him to sit down beside him, because he reckoned he wouldn't be staying long and he hardly reckoned Pete would want him to, especially after the truth came out... quite literally.... came out.

"Hey, what's wrong? You look kind of pissed off, actually, Patty, tell me what's wrong." And that was how Pete's question transformed into a statement, and really, if he insisted, he surely could never bare to upset or disappoint his best friend, because one of them had to be dedicated to this friendship, at the very least, and the duty just seemed to have fallen upon Patrick, once again.

"You're what's wrong, Pete." 

And the silence was astoundingly rewarding: what he'd felt with telling Ryan was nothing, and this was liberation, and this was freedom, and this was flying without wings. "You're being an asshole. Tell me how's Mikey - you two make a good couple, you know. You're both utter cunts."

Patrick wasn't a vulgar person, but some cases just called for it, and it seemed like Pete's was the most important of those, but of course, Patrick had an overwhelming urge to slap that gaping look right off his best friend's face, but he was a pacifist, and he knew that was going to come and bite him in the ass someday, and this was that day indeed.

"Patrick.. I...I..." He was nothing but a stutter and a stumble for words, because he had nothing, and Pete Wentz had never even accounted for the fact that his quiet, shy little best friend may actually grow some personality of his own one day, because he wasn't Patrick - Pete's friend, he was Patrick Stump, and he had more of a right to Pete Wentz's heart than Mikey Way ever did.

"Do you want to know a god awful, life destroying, friendship ruining secret, Pete? Do you? Because you might as well - I know all of yours, you don't even need to tell me them. You make it obvious, Pete, you make it so obvious, and I can be as obvious as I like and you'll still never notice, so I’m setting up a little experiment here - an experiment if it will still ever sink in even when I scream it right in your face. What do you think? What do you predict to be the outcome of the experiment? Do you want to draw a graph-"

"Patrick... I... what the fuck?" His words were breathy and his eyes widened and he looked his best friend up and down and barely recognised the guy called Patrick Stump anymore, because something was seriously wrong, and even Pete knew that, but as Patrick had suggested, it seemed, that as always, it would take screaming it in his face for eyeliner clad idiot to finally realise the truth that had been slapping him across the face for forever now.

"You don't know, do you?" Patrick sighed out, shaking his head in utter disbelief at the mess he'd been forced to call a best friend, and simply for loyalty’s sake, and still it seemed that it was always him that seemed to care the most, when it came to anything. "You don't have a goddamn clue!"

"Patrick-"

"I love you. And I love you more and I've loved you longer than Mikey has and ever will."

-

Mikey Way just about reckoned that this was the most uncomfortable situation he'd ever found himself in, because never before had his brother had more of a stupid idea than bringing his boyfriend home, and of course, whilst he was dressed in a full face of make up and a fucking skirt, and Mrs Way's mini heart attack at the sight of her son had brought a dreadful silence to the reluctant company.

"So..." Mikey felt it necessary to break the silence, and by doing so, all eyes in the room were on him, and his mother almost looked offended at the fact that he'd interrupted her in the process of death glaring her eldest son. "This was unexpected."

"It certainly was, Gerard, you should just be happy that your father's out on business this weekend, otherwise you would be in so much trouble-"

"I'm not fucking sixteen, mum, I'm twenty five, I'm an adult, I don't live here anymore, I don't live with you anymore, and you can't tell me what to do with my life." And it was at that point that Gee stood up from the sofa, and Mrs Way gasped at just how short the tight, black leather miniskirt he eldest son had squeezed into earlier, and more for the sake of spite than anything else, but Frank was most certainly appreciating his boyfriend in that miniskirt nonetheless.

"Funny enough how you were saying exactly the same thing at sixteen." Mrs Way snapped, and Gee sat down, sitting awkwardly close to Frank, and again, perhaps just out of spite.

"And I wonder why that was." Gee sighed, rolling his eyes and leaning back against the leather of the sofa, meeting his mother's gaze without even a flinch. "I just came over to tell you that I'm still alive, in case you were wondering. And I just came to introduce you to my boyfriend, because I love him and he's an important part of my life. Just to be polite, you know."

"Frank and I have already met, Gerard." She snapped, pulling her gaze away from her son, and faking a ridiculously overly sympathetic gaze before meeting Frank's eyes. "How on earth have you gotten meddled up in the mess, huh, Frank? You were always such a nice boy, and I'm terribly sorry that my son has corrupted you with his... his... homosexual behaviour."

His mother's words, although sincere and stern in nature, brought the eldest of the two Way brothers to badly suppressed laughter, which then trailing into faked coughing as he let the word, "cumslut," 'unintentionally' slip his lips. Frank could kill him.

"Actually, Mrs Way, I'm sorry to upset you, but, I've been gay all the time you've known me. I was getting to grips with my sexuality years ago, it's just, Gee's the first proper boyfriend I've had, and I don't mean to disrespect you here, but I think you should scare more about whether your son's happy than what he prefers in bed."

And it was Frank's words that brought Mrs Way to silence again, as her eyes drifted to floor, and she exhaled in an auditory fashion, the words slipping her lips with a degree of unintentionality. "What would your mother say about this, Frank?"

"She already knows I'm gay, and she already knows I'm dating Gee, and she's fine with it, so yeah, she probably wouldn't actually say all that much." And it was Gee who had to bite back his smirk at the snide tone with which Frank's words had been spun.

"Mum, look, I really, don't want to cause trouble, but I honestly, don't think it matters, look, Gee, he's happy, he's out of your house most of the time, and he just... he likes guys, that doesn't change him as a person-"

"Yeah, he's always been an utter pain in the ass." Mrs Way sighed, raising her eyebrows, only to find both Gee and Frank giggling like thirteen year olds at the term 'pain in the ass' and the context with which was used.

"And I've always been gay." Gee added, smirking firmly settled upon his lips at this point. "And I've always liked wearing skirts. I think this one is quite flattering, what about you, what do you think-"

"Gerard." Mrs Way sighed out, preferring if the twenty five year old just allowed her to ignore the miniskirt for the time being. "Look, it's just the way you've lived your life, you're nowhere, Gerard - where's your job? Where's your own home? Mikey here's got it all figured out, I mean, he's not messing his life up with stupid little phases like you are-"

"The whole of his life seems like an awfully long phase, don't you think?" And by this time, Frank declared that he'd had enough, stepping up to Mrs Way and entirely stepping out of line, but if he was out of line, Mrs Way was on a different planet.

"I'm just saying, that Mikey is being much more sensible-"

"No, what you're saying is 'why can't you be like Mikey?'" Gee broke the room into silence with a harsh truth that no one could deny. "And honestly, 'mother', just a little fucking spoiler: if you think Mikey is your perfect little well behaved, good Catholic son, then you're so fucking wrong that it's laughable-"

"Shut the fuck up, Gerard!" Mikey screamed, his face growing red, as he interrupted his brother, knowing exactly where the twenty five year old was going with it, and not liking it one bit at all. "Just shut up, okay? Leave me out of this."

"See, sensible-" And even Frank began to reckon that Mrs Way needed slapping across the face at this point.

"Come on, Frank, we're going, seeing as this hasn't at all gone as spectacular as planned." Gee sighed out, getting up and pulling his boyfriend up with him. But of course, in true Gee Way style, he could never quite leave without making a point.

And he did so as he reached the front door, spinning around and meeting his mother's gaze, and then Mikey's, and then looking back to Mrs Way again, as he uttered the two words that fucked everything up for his little brother.

"Pete Wentz."

-

"I wasn't joking about the dope, you know." Bob seemed almost too proud, his face giving way to a smug grin as he returned to his front room with some really badly made tea, slightly more adequate strawberry poptarts, and a little ziplock bag of marijuana.

"Oh..." Alicia chose now to question whether or not just going into some random stranger's house for poptarts was really the best of ideas, but she was quite possibly feeling far too angsty and misunderstood to care right now. "I've never actually seen weed before, like in real life."

"What the fuck do you posh kids do with your time then?" Bob sighed, rolling his eyes and rolling himself a joint as Alicia almost gingerly began to nibble at a poptart: her eyes never leaving Bob, and the weed, and the lighter.

"Uhh..." She sighed out, catching his gaze as she came to realise that perhaps that wasn't a rhetorical question. "I... I play netball, I guess... and... I..."

"Friends? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?" He chuckled a little at the last one, oblivious to the note it struck instead Alicia: Mikey and Pete. "I think you'll find that over here, a lot of us are far less narrow-minded than the people where you're from."

"Yeah, I go to Catholic school so I guess you're not wrong then." Bob nearly choked on his joint at that, eyes growing wide, as the only thing he got out of Catholic school was uniform.

"Uniform?"

"Fuck off." She rolled her eyes, blushing just a little, just out of embarrassment. "I had a boyfriend until rather recently, but... that went really wrong... he cheated on me."

"Well, he's a douchebag then, because you're very nice and very hot." Alicia guessed it would probably be easier to take that as a compliment and at face value, instead of paying any attention to Bob's body language.

"He cheated on me with a guy." And there came Bob's second choke; this time, however, it went ignored on Alicia's part. "Who he's supposed to hate, and he's homophobic as fuck, but this is just really weird, and now they're dating but it's a 'secret' and I couldn't totally ruin his life, but I haven't and I'm not sure as to why."

"Stop caring about him - he's an asshole." Bob was so nonchalant in saying that, and it wasn't lacklustre advice - Bob really lived in the kind of mentality where something as simple as that would just work, and really Alicia wished things were like that for her too, but Alicia and Bob were worlds away and it was only poptarts that had brought them together.

"I wish I could, but I can't stop thinking and I can't stop caring, because it's all my 'friends' ever seem to go on about." She sighed out, throwing her head back against the sofa, and Bob realised just how useless he was when it came to comforting girls, and found himself generally rather stumped regarding what to do.

"Well, then they're shit friends so tell them to go fuck themselves-"

"I would, but I've got no one else." She sighed out, taking another bite of the poptart and hating how excited she'd been about strawberry poptarts ten minutes ago, and now, just like everything else, it had all turned shit and she just couldn't care less.

"You've got me, huh?" Bob grinned wildly, and soon enough, Alicia found a grin to mirror Bob's across her lips.

"I guess... I just don't know why I can't just forget about this shit, I mean- fuck, you don't even care, do you? I've gone on and whined about my life for ages, look come on, tell me about you and tell me about yours."

"Alicia, I-" Bob spoke up in an attempt to protest, but really, Alicia didn't even let him speak long enough for his point to even be known, let alone considered.

"Tell me about you, Bob." She repeated, ignoring the dodgy tea, and picking up another poptart, because maybe they weren't quite so bad after all.

"Uhh... I do a lot of drugs, I sell a lot of drugs, I have like three- four... you, possibly five on good days, friends. One of these friends is a crossdresser and he's dating a boy from Catholic school, which is mildly amusing, except I've met his boyfriend and he's quite nice actually - he even bought weed off me like the other week." Bob stressed the last fact like it was somehow something that would impress Alicia.

"Wait... who's this guy from Catholic school? Mine's the only school in town, I... I probably know him." Little did Alicia know how such a question would throw everything out of balance, and in ignorance, she asked away, and in favour of possibly seeing Alicia again, and perhaps even in catholic school uniform, Bob answered.

"His name's Frank... like Frank Oreo or something... Lero... or Earo... fuck, I don't know, it's like Italian and shit-"

"It's Frank Iero." Alicia finished for him and honestly, Bob looked goddamn surprised by that, but of course, nowhere as much as Alicia was when it came to Frank's apparent homosexuality and crossdressing kink. "He's my ex-boyfriend's best friend."

"Oh, I thought he was quite nice actually." Bob trailed off, eyes set on the window and the street outside.

"He is, I think... I mean, I've never really spoken to him, but I think anyone's nicer than Mikey Way-"

"Mikey Way?" And there was the third choking incident that Bob had, yet this time, Alicia really did take note.

"Yeah... my ex-boyfriend... do you know him?" She appeared cautious at tis point, because if Bob and Mikey knew each other, then really, she was just out of there.

"I've never actually met him, but I've heard an awful lot about him. I'm very close with his brother... his brother being Gee Way, being the crossdresser-"

"Who Frank's dating? Frank's dating Mikey's fucking brother... what? Does Mikey know?"

"Yeah, it didn't perhaps go as well as planned though. Things are a bit icy between them-"

"Bob, are you even supposed to tell me like half of this?"

Bob thought for a moment. "Probably not, no."

-

"Ray?" 

The curly haired boy looked up at the mention of his name, and looked back down again as he saw Mikey approaching him: stood a few metres away from where he was sat awkwardly on a swing in the shitty little playground.

"Ray, hey dude." Mikey flashed him a smile, before sitting down on the swing beside him, and as much as Ray wanted to respond and for things just to be normal again between them, the whole world- well, his friends, his only friends had persistently told him that Mikey was an asshole that he shouldn't let him 'manipulate' him.

Ray always seemed to see the good in everyone though, and Mikey was no exception; he was a nice guy behind the homophobia, douchebaggery, and the fucking everyone's love lives over bit. Okay, maybe, Mikey was a nice guy behind everything that was characteristic of him, and Ray just didn't know how to deal with that, or deal with Mikey himself, so he gave in.

"Hey." It was simple, and it was just polite and something that was overall irrelevant, and this was the same kind of conversation he'd have with someone at a bus stop, so surely it didn't really matter, did it?

"I'm pretty sure that my life's just about ruined now." Mikey sighed out, ruining the air of nonchalance that his tone brought to his words, and causing Ray to look up, and perhaps even look interested, or concerned, rather. Ray wasn't fascinated by Mikey's demise - he wasn't his friends, and he was right in saying that they didn't own him, and therefore, he could totally just talk to Mikey, couldn't he?

"Why?"

"Gerard practically outed me to my mum. Well, he didn't say it directly, but he said that I wasn't the 'perfect' son, and then just added a fucking 'Pete Wentz' to the end of his sentence." Mikey sighed out, kicking the gravel beneath the swing set with his feet. "And her idea of 'perfect' is straight and Catholic, if you haven't picked that up already. And then Gerard brought Frank over so she's totally going to sneak into Frank's house and like crucify him in his sleep or something."

"Your mum is a really horrible person, you know that?"

"Yeah I've picked up on it." Mikey chuckled a little, and almost masochistically so, before letting out a deep sigh and then continuing. "I wish I had a mum like Frank's though, like she's met Gerard and she doesn't even care that he's a twenty five year old crossdresser and I... it's now that I begin to understand why Gerard hated them so much and then ran away."

"You've got Pete though. You've got Pete, Mikey." Ray reminded him with maybe just a slight hint that he should dump his problems on someone that's allowed to speak to him.

"Yeah, well his dad hates me too, and generally, I'm just really fucking, fuck- his dad thought I was like a prostitute or something. Ray, honestly, tell me - do I look like a prostitute?" And Mikey's sincerity sent Ray laughing so hard that he nearly fell off his swing.

"No, Mikey. You look like a pornstar." Ray corrected him, rolling his eyes and pulling out his cellphone to see a text from Frank, which he really doubted would go down at all well with Mikey.

"Text? Who's it from?" Of course, Mikey had to ask, being the asshole with no respect for anyone's privacy but his own.

"Frank." Ray sighed out, pretending not to notice the expression that had subconsciously (or perhaps not) made its way onto Mikey's face. "Something about Patrick and... and slapping Pete across the face- Jesus, what's this? Mikey? What's this?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Mikey exclaimed, practically jumping out of the swing and snatching the phone from Ray's hands and scanning over Frank's text. "What the fuck? What the actual fuck is Patrick like drunk or something?"

"Of course not! It's Patrick." Ray sighed out, the confusion continuing to hit him, because none of this added up - not at all.

"Yeah... he slapped my boyfriend - I want to slap him back, but it's Patrick... I, just..."

"Maybe, maybe, he just snapped. Like completely fell apart, because of something or someone, most likely Pete, despite the fact that they're supposed to be best friends, I mean... that just messed up didn't it, how did that happen?"

"Ray, we're supposed to be best friends."

"But then Frank started dating your brother and you started dating someone you hate and now I'm left awkwardly in the middle - caught in the crossfire between you too, and I really hate it, Mikey. You know that, don't you?"

-


	22. World War III Takes Place In Ryan Ross' Living Room

Patrick felt like dying.

Patrick felt like curling up into a ball, closing his eyes, and never opening them again.

Because he'd truly messed up this time and the screaming and yelling between the people around him: friends, ex-friends, and could-have-been-lovers alike, was far too evident of that.

He wanted it all to stop and he wanted to wish everything away, but for the first time, he felt himself lost, confused, and utterly helpless, because for the first time, he looked at people and saw nothing: nothing but anger, and conflict - emotions so loud they were screaming: a kind of passion that could damn near kill him, but not at all in the way he wanted.

If he was going to lose his hope, his personality, he may as well lose his mind as well, but perhaps at the hand of a bullet and not that of his own creation, well, destruction.

Because he'd screwed up, and he'd screwed up for real this time, and the way Mikey looked at Pete like he didn't trust him anymore was all that he needed to know that he was the problem here, but the thing was that Patrick Stump could solve any problem, except himself.

It was his fault that Brendon looked like slapping Ryan, because Brendon didn't like secrets, and Patrick had practically forced Ryan into one. And it was his fault that Frank looked conflicted and confused - having known barely anything about the whole mess up until it had come and slapped him, well Pete, in the face; he had enough problems of his own and it was entirely Patrick's fault that he'd gained another. And it was his fault that Ray looked more and more upset every time he tried to calm Mikey down and in consequence every time Mikey shot him down for it.

This mess was entirely of his own creation, and it was just those stupid fucking feelings of his that he could never quite supress enough; he should have thought about everyone else and the impact his irrationality and emotions had inflicted upon the people he cared about most, and in fact now they had become the people that he shouldn't even be allowed to care about at all.

Patrick Stump reckoned he didn't even deserve anyone to care about, because he noticed far too much and said everything when nothing was needed and nothing when everything was needed; he was the fuck up - the marriage proposal at the funeral - out of place and wrong, and perhaps just there for the sake of it.

But there was nothing he could do sat alone on the sofa in the house that Mr and Mrs Ross had foolishly left Ryan in charge of all week - perhaps this was something that, although foolish, Brendon Urie should be personally thanking them for. There was nothing Patrick could do but sit alone and watch as his friends yelled and his vision grew fuzzy and he felt like his organs were abandoning his body like a sinking ship, and perhaps that would have been okay just to pass out then and there, but Ray noticed, and he shouldn't have.

"Patrick, are you okay- guys, guys, he looks like-" Ray brought the room to silence and that was one thing Patrick was thankful for at the very least, but still, he couldn't quite trick himself into thinking that the luxury of silence was something he deserved.

"Fuck, he's going to like pass out or something-"

"Brendon, did it not occur to you that screaming it at him would in no way help the situation at all?" Pete rolled his eyes: things had always just been a little bitter between the two of them, and Patrick almost passing out in Ryan's living room did nothing to change that.

"I'm sorry." Patrick finally stuttered out a response, Ryan rushing to the sofa to support him and try his best to ensure that they didn't have an unconscious mentally traumatised ginger kid on their hands.

"Patrick, this isn't your fault okay?" Ryan seemed to be the only one at all capable of comforting him, as the rest of Patrick's 'friends' stood in a gaping silence.

"Well, actually, it kind of-"

"Shut the fuck up, Brendon. Make yourself fucking useful and get him some fucking water, okay?" Ryan continued to make it evident that he wasn't going to take any bullshit from Brendon, especially not when it came to Patrick, because Ryan Ross had found himself caring far too much about someone he'd never even imagine being friends with in the first place.

Brendon rolled his eyes before obliging, and only due to the fact that he and Ryan had an empty house again tonight, and if his boyfriend wanted to throw him into the fiery pits of hell, then he kind of reckoned that it would maybe just spoil their evening.

Ray was the second to sit beside Patrick and attempt to comfort him; the curly haired boy had no recollection of ever having a one on one conversation with Patrick in the past, but he was just far too nice for his own good, and perhaps this was the only situation in which something like that could be deemed an advantage.

"Patrick, it's really not your fault... people just get fired up, and you can't stop yourself from having feelings for someone - not really." Ray sighed, biting his lip and trying his best to ignore Pete's death glare, which he caught in the corner of his eye.

"Kind of made my boyfriend hate me though, didn't you, Patrick?" It seemed Pete, much like Brendon, wasn't quite as happy to just give up on World War III that had been occurring in Ryan's Ross' living room, however, unlike Brendon, he didn't have a pissed off boyfriend with an empty house tonight in order to shut him up.

All Pete Wentz had was a really pissed off, jealous, and confused boyfriend, a not quite best friend who was just far too in love with him for anybody's good, and an awful lot of eyeliner.

"Pete, you can shut the fuck up and start giving one single fuck about your best friend or be kicked out of my house, okay?" Ryan piped up, eyebrows raised and effectively shutting the most emo person in the room up, at least temporarily anyway.

"Pete, you should know of all people that you can't chose who you fall in love with." Frank, who had been silent up until this moment, finally opened his mouth, and only in order to drop what would have been the biggest bombshell of World War III (which occurred in Ryan's living room).

"And so should you, Frank. Didn't your relationship kind of ruin just about all of your friendships?" Pete clearly had no concept of 'too far'.

"I thought we were friends, Pete, you know? What happened to that? The fact that I'm not being a douchebag to your supposed bestfriend? Doesn't look like you know an awful lot about friendship at all, does it?" Frank sighed out, pulling his gaze away from Pete and turning to Ryan, who seemed to kind of be in charge here - which might just be because it was his house, well either that or the fact that everyone would respect someone who could get Brendon Urie to shut up. "I'm going to go now - if that's alright?"

"Yeah, go on, fucking walk back to your fucking tranny of a boyfriend-" If Pete had gone too far before, right now, he'd thrown himself into another solar system.

"Don't fucking talk about my brother like that!" And seemed that was what it took for Mikey Way to finally stand up for himself, and for the right cause, as well, because Mikey could hate Gee as much as he damn well wanted, but nothing was going to change the fact that they'd lived together for years, and Gee had always been so much braver than he was.

"Mikey?" Pete just looked at his boyfriend, almost as if he hadn't expected that vulgarly insulting his boyfriend's brother would have any kind of consequences whatsoever.

"So what am I just painted out to be the asshole that doesn't care? Am I only supposed to care about you, because that's the kind of person you need? Someone to prop your ego up on bad days?" Pete was speechless, and as Brendon walked back in with the glass of water, he couldn't help but feel like he'd missed an awful lot.

"Mikey, I'm sorry, I just- we say things we don't mean sometimes, don't we?"

"What? Like when you told me you cared." Patrick thought he might as well continue in wrecking the whole world around him, because it seemed that he was really becoming accustomed to the beauty of destruction and the passion in hatred and the way everything had fallen apart, and all because of him. It was power, but it was wrong, but maybe Patrick just didn't want to be right all the time, and maybe he wanted to make Pete Wentz sorry for every single fucking time he put him down.

"Patrick, look you're my best friend, but I just don't love you, I-... I can't... we're great friends, but I love Mikey, and I-"

"What? You're just going to let him live with that?" Ryan stood up at this point, leaving Patrick to lean into Ray and try his best not to cry in front of everyone he cared about. "With knowing that he'll always be nothing more than second best to you? He loves you. Think about how it feels with Mikey yelling at you because you screwed up, and think about that all the time. You don't deserve to be his best friend."

"Pete, I love you, but fucking call me when you've sorted this shit out - I don't want to watch you fuck up, okay?" And with that, Mikey pulled himself together and made his way out, leaving the room in awe, and Pete in something close to tears, but it was just that kind of something that he'd never let anyone say anything about ever again.

"I'm going too." Frank sighed out, catching a few gazes as he did so. "Ray, call me tomorrow though - we need to talk." And with that Ray instantly knew it was obvious; Frank saw the way he looked, and Frank saw the way he cared, and Frank saw too much and too much all at once, but unlike Patrick, he was far too much of the confrontational type.

"Apologise to Patrick, okay?" Brendon sighed out, sitting down beside Ryan and speaking for the first time since his boyfriend told him to shut up.

"What the hell am I supposed to say to someone that doesn't even want anything to do with me anymore now that I've just about fucking ruined everybody's life?" Pete practically screamed in Brendon’s face, almost as if he'd entirely forgotten that Patrick was still there and looking up at him with an odd kind of hope for someone that he knew would let him down without question.

"Tell him that you're sorry and fucking prove that you care before you just go and lie to him again. You don't notice him at all but he notices everything about you, just value him like you care about him and don't just treat the friendship thing between you like some sort of unbreakable, unquestionable thing, because although you've made it evident that you're absolutely devoid of feelings, Patrick still fucking hurts, and Patrick still fucking cares." 

"Ryan, I do care, come on - I would have just gone by now if I didn't." Pete pleaded, looking almost sheepishly into Ryan's eyes; Ryan Ross had already made it very evident that he was not someone to be messed with.

"If you did, you would have apologised by now." 

"I'm sorry, Patrick. I've been an ass- I am an ass, and you're my best friend, and I do care about you, and I'm so sorry, I don't even deserve you but please give me another chance... please." And Pete fucking meant it - for once, Pete Wentz meant something he said to someone, and if this was it, he was most definitely saving it for the right moment.

"It's okay." Patrick smiled, getting up and hugging his best friend, and Brendon kicked Ryan a little just to ensure that his boyfriend would just shut up now that they were okay, and for Brendon to do something in Pete Wentz's favour, it really was something. 

"I'm so sorry." Pete told him again, letting Patrick bury his head against Pete's chest, and really he was far too thankful that Mikey had gone by now, because really, this was hug was far too long and far too personal for him not get jealous over.

But no matter how many times Pete could apologise and mean it, all it took was Ryan Ross to whisper something hateful in Patrick's ear to ensure that the redhead never believed his bestfriend again.

-

"It's just messed up, Gerard, I mean, you wouldn't have thought that Patrick would have fallen in love with his best friend and now pretty much everyone's pissed off and Ryan's gone into some weirdass overprotective motherly phase, and Ray keeps... Ray... he keeps looking at Mikey, and it's something I keep noticing, and I don't want it to be what I think it is, but with way he blushes when I catch his gaze, I just can't help but think that it is, man... this is all fucking screwed, you know?"

Gee sighed out, rolling himself a joint, sat on his bed in Bert’s house, with Frank pacing almost unnervingly around the room as he relayed his soap opera's worth of problems to his boyfriend.

Frank was still a little reluctant to let Gee stay with Bert, but things seemed to be okay right now, and Gee was definitely getting better from the state he was in before, so really, the seventeen year old just had to hope that things would all be okay as he continued to freak the fuck out regarding the millions of problems fucking his life over.

"You want one?" Gee gestured to the joint he'd just lit, and Frank only laughed, rolling his eyes, but sitting down crossed legged on the bed, opposite his boyfriend, and nodding regardless. "Thought so."

Gee, joint in mouth, rolled Frank one, placed it between the seventeen year old's lips, causing him to giggle a little, and lit it, before pulling away and dropping his lighter as the two exhaled, and Gee tried not to think about the fact he practically spent his life giving drugs to minors... well, Frank Iero.

"Seriously though, Patrick's upset and in love with Pete, Pete's pissed off and in love with Mikey, and Mikey's generally being a fucking asshole and is too much of an asshole to actually love anyone-" Gee raised his eyebrows at that, and Frank only smirked a little before continuing. "And then Ray's definitely crushing on Mikey and he's just trying to be nice to everyone, and then Ryan's like become Patrick's fucking overprotective mother and hates the world, and Brendon's just kind of pissed off at everyone but listens to Ryan so hasn't caused any kind of shit recently, and really, besides Brendon and Ryan who are practically fucking married, I'm the only one not involved in some intricate love triangle- quadrilateral thing."

"You know, I liked it better when you were just friends with Jamia and I didn't know that you even knew my brother." Gee mused, causing Frank to roll his eyes, exhaling loudly and trying to think about anything else, but Patrick and Pete and the destruction they'd caused, just didn't seem to have the capability of ever leaving his mind.

"Yeah, Jamia's fucking fine, by the way. Lindsey's good for her."

"And I'm not good for you?" Gee smirked, raising one eyebrow.

"Nah, you're the absolute worst, you know that, Way?" Frank giggled a little, as Gee rolled his eyes, pressing his lips to Frank's and letting everything fade away for just a few seconds. "Do you have any advice regarding my soap opera of a life right now at all or do you want me just to talk about absolutely anything else?"

"How's your mum doing these days, eh, Frankie?" Gee joked, winking at his boyfriend, who only rolled his eyes in response, before answering Gee's question regardless of its light-hearted tone.

"My mum's doing fine, you know. Hasn't even gotten a new boyfriend recently."

"Ah, that's truly sad. Tell her I know many assholes who will happily be stepdads for a period of a few months or less." Gee joked, and Frank only shook his head in response, turning around and leaning back into his boyfriend's lap, just so his head rested right on Gee's crotch.

"Shut up."

"Your head is terribly close to my cock, you know, Frankie." Gee smirked, purposefully blowing smoke towards his boyfriend's face. Frank giggled in response, blowing smoke back and causing Gee to jump a little. "Find out what's going on with Ryan, though."

"What?" Frank asked, almost having entirely forgotten about what he'd been speaking to Gee about in the first place, and although entirely cliché, that was just entirely the effect that Gee had on him.

"Ryan's only going to be acting so weird from something. He either wants to protect really fucking bad due to something between the two of them, or maybe there's something up with him and his boyfriend- whatever, his name was I can't even remember- I swear to god, all your fucking friends are gay, and weren't you fucking complaining about how you were the only gay guy you knew when we first met?"

"It's you. You're so fucking gay that it's infecting people, like a fucking plague, you know?"

"Oh shut up, you're pretty fucking gay too." Gee told his boyfriend, and Frank only shook it off, continuing with what they were originally saying before the twenty five year old had gone off on some weird ass tangent.

"Ryan's boyfriend's called Brendon. I think they're alright, I mean, I don't really talk to Brendon, cause he's kind of an arrogant fuckwit most of the time, but Ryan and I are okay, and he hasn't really said anything, but there was this one time when I was at the park with Patrick and Ryan and I had to go find Bob and blackmail him into finding out what the fuck was going on with you, you know this was... then... and, yeah, so they got left alone, Ryan was kind of pissed at first, but he never mentioned it afterwards, so I guess maybe, Ryan and Patrick got kind of close then or something."

"This is hurting my head, I'm not good with life advice, I'm practically a fucking junkie, I'm not your number one advice giver - you should know that." Gerard groaned out, twirling Frank's hair around his fingers. "And how you're kind of pressing into my crotch really isn't helping at all."

"So what? You'd rather I suck you off than I dump my problems onto you? Huh, who would have guessed."

-

"You should totally meet my friends." Bob was trying far too hard to act confident and Alicia was trying her best to get him to shut up for just one second, and really neither of them were succeeding at all.

"Bob you're friends are probably messed up stoners who like underage girls a little too much and I'm a Catholic school girl from the rich part of town and you're probably grooming me and luring me into the sextrade with poptarts, like seriously, did I mention how messed up our friendship is but you make me laugh, you know... and I really like poptarts."

"Underage girls? Where the hell do you get that from?" Bob's eyes widened, laughing it off like the answer wasn't obvious.

"You." Alicia rolled her eyes, walking ahead, in the direction Bob was leading her, despite her previous wishes, because really, whatever, she'd meet his friends, as long as it kept her away from her own world for just an hour or two, because when the only headache in your life was a hangover inflicted one, life seemed to be just that much more liveable.

"I'm not a pedoph- I... Alicia!" Bob protested, perhaps just a little too loud, running after Alicia, who stopped and turned, eyebrows raised and smirk set onto her lips.

"Bob, you're like twenty six, and I'm seventeen - it's a little weird, even for us just to be friends, but you stare at my tits far too often for it to be just that on your end." She rolled her eyes, walking beside Bob in his bewildered silence, as he struggled to figure out if he should be apologising for looking at her tits at all.

"It's fine, I look at everybody's tits."

"Somehow, I don't think that makes it any better-" Alicia stopped as Bob pulled her back with a hand on her shoulder, causing her to jump a little at first, but with Bob's stupidass fucking grin it all faded away within seconds.

"We're here." And Alicia said nothing more as the drug dealer, who she meet a few days ago, and was nine years older than her, led her into an unfamiliar place, and this time, without even the promise of poptarts.

-

"Bert, she's not my girlfriend." Bob sighed out, Bert only rolling his eyes as he grabbed various alcoholic beverages from the cupboard and putting them down on the dining table. He was kind of pleased he had company of some sort, even if it was just Bob and his clearly underage 'girlfriend', because then at the very least he didn't have to think about Gee and Frank fucking in the room next door.

"Sure. Right, you're old enough to at least pretend you can legally drink alcohol, aren't you?" Bert addressed his question at Alicia, who stood wide-eyed at Bert's rather confrontational nature. "Yes, you, whatever your name was."

"Alicia." She reminded him, a little pissed off, but slowly regaining her senses and sitting down at the table beside Bob, who in comparison to this 'Bert' guy, seemed like the nicest fucking guy she'd ever met. "I'm seventeen."

Bert snorted, grabbing some glasses, not that he tended to drink alcohol out of anything besides the bottle it came from, but he assumed girls had different ideas about these kinds of things. "What is it seventeen year olds, huh? Why not go for one year older? At least then it'd be legal."

"Bert, shut up, we're not dating. Alicia's just my friend, okay. Shut up." Bert sighed out, grabbing a bottle of vodka and downing half of it in one go, which left Alicia rather dumbfounded, and Bert could only smirk, having prided his alcoholism as his greatest quality, because really, he was an utter asshole and there wasn't that much else to pick from.

"You've stolen all the alcohol on purpose, haven’t you? You fucking know I want a drink, fucking don't you?" The three jumped a little at the presence of a forth voice, belonging to none other than everyone's favourite crossdresser. "Wait, you've got company- wow, you actually have friends - congratulations, McCracken, fucking congratulations."

"It's just Bob... and his not girlfriend." Bert snorted a little at that, leaving Gerard to make a slightly skewed judgement regarding Bob and Alicia.

"Alicia." She corrected once more, rolling her eyes and flashing Bob an 'I'm going to fucking punch you when we get out of here' look.

But of course, it was then that Frank Iero walked in - sexhair and all.

"Frankie, he's stolen all the fucking booze again-" Gee groaned a little, his tone changing drastically in sight of his boyfriend, of course, though, his words immediately put to a stop as Frank and Alicia's gazes finally crossed and whole worlds seemed to explode in Bert McCracken's shitty ass dining room.

"Frank..."

"Oh my god, they fucking know each other, the drama has reached new heights - this is fucking fantastic!"

"Oh shut the fuck up, Bert." Bob just shook his head, watching as Alicia got up.

"I'm fucking going, I'm sorry, Frank, I just look at you and I see him, and I can't, this is all to get away from him and I- please don't tell anyone." Alicia broke down into a state close to tears, about to fucking run, only for Bob to hold her back and pull her into his chest, and for some fucking stupid reason, she let him.

"Frank? What's this? I know about the boyfriend that cheated on her with the guy, and I-" Bob's eyes widened, looking at Frank like he was genuinely worried about the possibility of one day having to hate his favourite underage Catholic school boy.

"The boyfriend... uhh, Mikey, yeah, he was my best friend." And that was when Gee's eyes widened, slowly piecing everything together, and generally wondering as to how anyone could ever date his brother.

"Mikey and Pete they're fucking assholes, I fucking hate them, I hope they fucking go to hell and fucking die- I-" Bob again managed to shut her up, which was really an achievement, yet however, the silence he created, only gave way to another one of Bert's drunken, sarcastic comments.

"Actually, they'd probably die and then go to hell, but whatever. This is your brother, Mikey, isn't, huh, Gee?" And that really had Alicia's eyes widening in Gee's direction.

"Wait, what the fuck, you're dating- fucking hell, that is wonderful, he'll hate that. I fucking love you both, he'll fucking hate that-"

"Oh, trust me. He fucking does."

-

Pete liked to say that he was a good person, but every time he did say so, it only became evident as just how willing he was to lie to himself or anyone for the sake of his own sanity.

Pete liked to pretend that the missed calls from both Mikey and Patrick weren't tempting and that they weren't bothering him, because indeed, he'd messed up like hell and perhaps this was just his price to pay.

And perhaps this was all just nothing more than what he deserved and perhaps it would all just be fine in the end, once he'd sorted himself out that was, but it seemed all it took to sort him out were sharp objects and a hell of a lot of blood.

So, really, it was simple, and then Patrick would be happy, and Mikey would be happy, and Ryan Ross would be over the fucking moon (his eyes would probably be the size of it too), all Pete had to fucking do was fucking stop it all.

And in a way that no person, no medication, no bullshit, nothing could solve. And something about that kind of cunning was almost appealing... in a bittersweetly sadistic kind of way, and Pete wanted to be clever like Patrick was, just for once.

He wanted to have a special secret and to know something that no one else did; he wanted to outwit the world once and for all, and this would be exactly the way to do it.

And really, the more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea became, and really, this was insanity coming into full bloom, but Pete just couldn't really help the fact that maybe he just didn't care at all.

If he was just an insensitive asshole, as people made him out to be, then he most definitely was going to do it in style. And it had become rather apparent that insanity and fuck ups was entirely Pete Wentz's style.

Maybe a simple apology would have just done it, but it was all too far and maybe it was just the pills and maybe it was just the fucking pills he'd taken, but still it made very little sense, and this was all sudden all messed up and sudden but that was how life was, and ultimately, that was how death was - it was there and gone before you knew it.

This wasn't planned, and this wasn't supposed to be planned, but Pete screwed the world over in that sense too, and nothing was quite as great as knowing that he'd given God the middle finger too, because without God there'd be no fucking Catholic school and no fucking Mikey and no fucking Patrick and nothing that had his forearms dripping red and fucking bleeding all over his bed sheets and he just really didn't fucking care, because he had better things to think about, things like chance and things like goodbye and where his dad kept the gun these days.

He had to at least thank his dad for choosing tonight to fuck off and leave his son alone to wallow in his own headfuckery as he muted his phone in order to ignore another call from Mikey, who maybe, by now, had just about started to care, and maybe, he would have even apologised, but for Pete it was still too late for that.

Now, everything was absolutely screwed, and Pete was certain of that fact. After all, Ryan fucking Ross had pretty much just underlined it in red marker pen for him today. And the apology just wasn't enough because it was the way Ryan looked at him as he hugged Patrick and it was the way that he was just disgusting now - he was a problem, he was a pest, and he was the one throwing Patrick into self-loathing.

He was the fuck up, he was the problem, and he needed to be sorted out.

And his thoughts went from screaming all at once to the kind of silence that brought ringing your ear, and it wasn't without purpose: the gun lying at the back of the drawer made sure of that.

Now this was just easy though, it was trigger and fixed, and maybe just a few more of those pills to make things easier, because Pete Wentz was always knew he was such a fucking coward, and as he swallowed his final handful, he made sure of that fact.

And goodbyes were hard, especially for cowards, so cowards turned off their phones and ran, but Pete didn’t run, Pete didn't fucking hide - Pete just pressed metal to his forehead and closed his eyes for what felt like centuries as he palm grew sweaty and his finger hovered over the trigger, his whole body beginning to shake, as he contemplated what little would be left of him after this and just how good that would be.

He contemplated who would be the first to find him and he made bets with himself over their reaction and really it was just stalling time: time before he wrote his last message, and he wrote it in biro on a sheet of paper from a notebook and not his own blood on the wall, because he wasn't a fucking cliché and despite popular belief, he felt too, and he felt like fucking hell all at once.

It was the content of his final message though that was most important thing, and not the gun to his forehead and the bloodstains on the walls in aftermath of the solution to one big fucking problem.

And he remembered what was fucking important as he took his last breath and pulled on the fucking triggered and thanked the pills for once allowing him to see straight in this whole fuck up he called his life, and only so, out of sympathy, but it was over now, and he had that as condolence.

The message was still legible despite the blood that splattered against in the crossfire of his demise: its message still remained the same, and it remained important.

I'm sorry. I love you both.

And it remained unread and unknown for far too long.

-


	23. Everyone In This Chapter Starts Crying At Some Point

"He fucking killed himself. Shot through the head and all over some fucked up lovesick drama that I can't help but imagine that you were highly involved with. So I hope you're fucking happy now - your boyfriend's dead. Really dead. Brains and blood across his bedroom dead. Handgun fallen to the floor dead. Bullet in his brain dead. Suicide note dead. Fucking 'I love you both'. Fucking coward. You can\'t see him, faggot, he's fucking dead, and I wouldn’t\t be fucking surprised if that bullet in his brain was your fault."

And that was all Mikey Way got from Mr Wentz before the front door was slammed and locked behind him, leaving the seventeen year old's world to shatter to pieces, almost in perfect synchronisation with his heart.

It didn't quite sink in, not really; he couldn't quite believe it - he didn't quite want to, but he'd never want evidence; he could never see someone he loved like that, and Mr Wentz had to, and maybe that allowed him to yell, and maybe that allowed him to scream, and maybe that did allow him to hate Mikey Way, but there was no way in hell that it allowed him to blame it upon the poor seventeen year old.

And then, slowly, it did sink in, and Mikey just wished it hadn't, because, fuck, his boyfriend was dead, Pete was dead; fucking killed himself, and dear fucking god. And the note, the note, the fucking note, this was all his fault, and Patrick's too, yet no one's at all, and his head wouldn't stop spinning and pretty soon he was going to pass out and fall into the road, and end up rather like Pete did, and fuck.

Mikey couldn't take it, Mikey couldn't fucking take it, and Mikey couldn't fucking believe it, yet it was real; it was too real, too fucking real, and he hated it. He wanted to hate Patrick for confessing and causing this, but he couldn't, and he wanted to hate Ryan for hating Pete, but still he couldn't, and he wanted to feel something, but really, he couldn't quite feel anything at all.

Pete loved him, but Pete loved Patrick too and Mikey didn't know if he hated that quite as much as he hated talking about Pete in the past tense, because Pete was still his fucking boyfriend, kind of, and no matter what, he still fucking loved him, and fuck, he couldn't believe that he'd walked out on him yesterday, and that was all he ever got left to say to Pete, and fuck, he just couldn't anymore.

Because there was no one to hear him apologise when for once he really meant it, and his head was spinning like fuck, and maybe he wanted to pass out, and maybe he wanted to get hit by a thousand cars, and maybe he wanted to die too, but Mikey wasn't like Pete in the fact that he could never quite do that.

Pete's head was fucked; Mikey knew that all too well. It was cutting, and pills, and disorders, and then this - Pete's head wasn't an easy place to live in for sure, whereas Mikey's tried, Mikey's head could try, Mikey's head fucking wanted him to get out of places like these and run from thoughts such as those, but Pete's was the one dragging him down that route in the first place.

And Mikey was going to be sick, Mikey was going to be fucking sick and his eyes were already raw from crying, and still he couldn't feel anything at all, and then, he just found himself running, and fucking running faster than he'd ever known: he had very little of a destination, but so fucking much to run from.

And soon enough, he found himself at the one person that this didn't fuck over, and the one relationship that Pete's death didn't affect at all: the one person he could still hate, regardless of guilt, and regardless of emptiness, and the person he said he didn't care about, but really did, so much more than anything.

Gee would kill him for ringing his doorbell at nine in the morning, but Mikey couldn't care less anymore - the concept of death was so relevant and so real right now, that almost felt just like the opposite of that, and maybe, this was just a fuck up, and maybe Mikey was just pretending, but if there was one thing that Mikey didn't want to be right now, it was a liar, even to himself.

-

Mikey's legs didn't ache, he didn't feel, his body was just continually numb and that was what had him running across town the fastest he ever had with no repercussions, at least not ones he was at all conscious of, at least not yet.

He let his breath catch up with him as he tried not to cry for just two seconds and ring the doorbell, but really he couldn't feel anything, and in fact, both his heart and his head seemed to be living in an entirely separate reality to his body and the rest of the world, and that was what brought the empty feeling in his chest where his heart should be, and of course, the multitude of stupid ideas.

"Yeah?" Mikey jumped a little as the door opened to reveal a woman in her twenties with black hair and a moderately pissed off expression, and still in her dressing gown, and really, Mikey didn't mean to wake her up, but seriously, he didn't care about people sleeping in on Saturdays when his boyfriend had died.

"Uhh, I need to see my brother, Gerard?" He asked, hopeful, but there was something about the raise in her eyebrows that made it evident that Gerard had long fucked off from here.

"Yeah, he doesn't live here anymore-" She turned to close the door behind her, but Mikey wouldn't let that happen for the second time today, even if it had ended up with him being slapped across the face and possibly arrested for harassment - nothing seemed to matter at all anyway, not anymore.

"Where does he live then?" Mikey asked, finally making eye contact with the woman, and leaving her to stare at his tear stained cheeks and shaking hands, and the lip biting that just wouldn't stop, and his voice that trembled just a little too much. "I really need to see him, I can't- I can't talk to anyone else, they wouldn't understand, I just... my boyfriend he killed himself- fuck, he killed... he killed himself... I..."

"He's going to hate me for telling you where he lives, you know. He moved away to get away from his family, and he's told me many times that he hates you, but fuck, I can't- I can't just leave you like this, fuck." And she tried not to let herself regret this, because surely, if Gerard was going to turn someone away in a state like this, he was just as much of a heartless asshole as he claimed his family to be.

-

Needless to say, Mikey found himself just a little hesitant upon approaching the bungalow in the rather shitty part of town that Lindsey had given him the address of, but he was falling apart far too much to even care about what might happen in this part of town, or how much his brother would hate to see him, and then how much of an idiot he would look with these fucking tearstained cheeks and the empty feeling inside his chest where his heart used to be.

And he was so caught up in what he once had and couldn't even say goodbye to that the world around him seemed to fade out and to Mikey, the now and the voice yelling at him didn't feel real at all, but all of a sudden, the alternate reality that he'd fabricated fell apart, piece by piece, and he could hear that voice screaming at him and he hated it all within an instant.

"What the fuck do you want? It's like ridiculous o clock, the fuck, kid?" Mikey found himself studying the figure in the doorway for a moment: shoulder length, dark, greasy hair, the 'I can't be bothered to shave so it happens rather sporadically and when it does it's a half assed job' stubble that made Mikey cringe a little, and under eye circles to make a beauty guru genocidal, but from the state Mikey himself was in, he was hardly in the position to judge at all.

"I need to see my brother, uhh... his name's Gerard, I... uhh... Lindsey she told me he lived here now..." The guy just stared at him in response, almost as if he'd asked if the president was living at this address, and really, Mikey was just about awaiting the punch to the face, but there was nothing but silence - the sickly kind of silence, and the silence that was killing off whatever was left of the seventeen year old. "It's important, I-"

"You're crying, yeah, I get that - I'm not here to listen to your fucking sob story. I imagine that's Gee's job - don't fucking call him Gerard, okay? Don't fucking do it. You're the shitty ass family, I get it, I totally fucking get it; I've got the shitty family too, and I hate them just as much as he hates you. You don't deserve to see him, you know-" And Mikey just didn't care at all: he'd had enough - shitty neighbour or not, asshole who could totally beat him up if he wanted to or not.

"Fuck you, fucking go fuck yourself: my boyfriend fucking shot himself last night. You should fucking shut up about other people being shitty assholes if the only thing you seem to be capable of is putting people down - you're the fucking shittiest person of them all." And at that, Mikey received nothing but a smile in return: a genuine fucking smile and he was just about utterly lost by now.

"There we go. There we fucking go: there's the passion, there's the feeling - there's the 'I care', there's the kickass standing up for yourself. Despite what Gee says, maybe you aren't so bad after all, huh, kid? I'm Bert, come on."

At this point, there was really nothing Mikey could put this sporadic behaviour down to, well, other than a multitude of narcotics and the bad kind of pills: this wasn't the world Mikey knew at all, and it honestly scared him to know that his brother lived with this guy - perhaps he was better off pills, or this was just cranky morning behaviour or something. Mikey didn't know.

Mikey didn't know anything. Especially not how to stop Pete from killing himself, and especially not how to make things right; he was pathetic, to say the least, and Mikey would say the most.

"I'm Mikey." He added into the silence, closing the door behind them as Bert led them through a hallway.

"I know." Was the only answer Mikey was given before he was led into a dining room, and faced with none other than his brother sat in the corner, in a skirt, smoking a joint, and looking anything but happy to see him.

"Why the ever loving fuck did you let him in, Bert? You fucking know what- fuck, just why?" Gee stood up at once as Mikey made his way further into the room, revealing a guy rolling himself a joint sat at the breakfast bar in the corner: almost separate from the commotion and the rest of the world - that or just incredibly high. Perhaps the latter.

"He told me to go fuck myself and I found it amusing." Bert added as his only explanation before making his way over to the guy rolling himself a joint in the corner, and leaving Mikey, still crying a little, at his brother's 'mercy'. "He'll tell you the rest - sounds like quite a sob story in my opinion."

"Fucking why, fucking why, Mikey?" Gee's tone changed a little: softer, still pissed off, but with an ounce of compassion towards his sobbing brother.

"Pete shot himself last night, and I don't know who else to go to - everything's just fucked and everyone that doesn't hate me already will hate me-" And just like that, all old tensions seemed to fade away as Gee pulled his brother in for a hug, and Gee stopped caring about what he'd said in the past, and Mikey stopped caring about why his brother liked to wear skirts.

"You're my brother, Mikey - I love you, and I'm so fucking sorry, come on, let's go to my room and we'll talk."

"Thank you, Gee. I love you too."

And for the first time that day, there was just a shred of hope, and Mikey believed, even just for a moment, that things would be alright in the end.

-

Mikey had to admit that his brother's bedroom absolutely stunk of weed, and the sheets were clearly come-stained and he tried his best to pull his eyes away and try not to think about Frank at all.

Gee sat down, cross legged upon the area of floor covered by a rug with a very suspicious stain in the corner, and avoiding the stain, Mikey went and sat beside his brother, kind of thankful that they'd both made a silent decision to just ignore the come-stained sheets.

"Do you want a smoke or anything or- why am I offering you this shit - you're my younger brother?" Gee sighed out, lighting a cigarette between his lips and letting a smile pass over his lips as he began to inhale the nicotine.

"I'm alright, I guess." Mikey sighed out, pulling his knees up to his chest and wondering how the hell he'd ever manage to convey any of his emotions at all. "Pete's dad blamed me. He locked me out and said it was my fault that Pete, that he-... Pete's uhh... note, it said 'I love you both', and fuck, I can't even blame Patrick, only myself, because Patrick he uhh... apparently he's liked Pete for a long time now and then Ryan-"

"Yeah, Frank's explained this to me." Gee sighed out in response, grabbing a makeshift ashtray off the foot of the bed and putting it down beside his feet. "I'm so sorry, though, Mikey, and Pete's dad's an absolute asshole for ever blaming something like that on you, or anyone - it's no one's fault, and it shouldn't be that way, but... Pete's dad's probably just really upset and he somehow needs a way to explain this to himself: he needs someone to blame. That note gave very little of an explanation and I guess his dad's probably confused to fuck."

"It was so fucking unexpected though, I think he was probably on some sort of pills or something when he did it, because that's how Pete makes his problems go away and then he already cuts, and I... I think maybe things just escalated and the drugs didn't help, and he just couldn't think straight anymore. I think he thought it was his fault, and I kind of think Ryan made him think it was his fault."

"Look, Mikey, no matter what Ryan's said, you can't blame him for this... you, you just can't put someone else's life or someone else's death on someone - it just fucks with people's heads and trust me, it doesn't end well."

"That's why I needed to talk to you." Mikey sighed out, trying not to start crying again, and failing horribly, leaving him to resort to burying his now tearstained face in his brother's shoulder. "Everyone else would just freak out and point the blame and things would just go to shit and people would probably blame me, especially Ryan - I'm probably the person Ryan hates the most after Pete, so I-"

"I think from what Frank's told me that Ryan just cares an awful lot about Patrick and doesn't actually hate either you or Pete-"

"He can fucking hate Pete all he fucking wants - Pete's fucking dead now. It doesn't fucking matter anymore, does it? Nothing fucking matters." And that was how Mikey fell in two, his words fading away amongst his sobs and as Gee attempted to put his arm around his brother to comfort him, his cellphone began to vibrate in his pocket, and as much as the twenty five year old wanted to ignore it and be there from his brother, this time, he couldn't.

"It's Frank, I..." Gee provided minimal explanation before picking up and trying not to think too hard about how Mikey grabbed tighter to him, almost as if he'd fade away and leave him all alone.

And Gee couldn't say a single thing before Frank was practically screaming at him down the line. "Pete's fucking killed himself. What the fucking fuck is anybody supposed to do now? Fucking fuck this- I..."

Frank was speaking too loud: loud enough so that Mikey could hear everything single word he was saying perfectly, and Gee noticed this turning the call volume down on his phone, only for Mikey to stop him in an entirely unexpected gesture.

"Put him on speaker, please, I want to know." And Gee sighed out, putting the call on speaker and putting his cellphone down on the carpet in front of them.

"Gee?" Came Frank's voice again, a little confused at the apparent absence of a response.

"Frank, fuck, I'm so sorry-" And it seemed perhaps that just a notion of his presence was all Frank needed before he continued screaming down the phone line again.

"How the fuck do we tell Patrick? How the fuck is Patrick going to feel? Ryan's going to freak out again and Brendon's probably going to punch somebody and I- I... I need to get really fucking high and I need to do it right now, because I can't fucking cope with this- fuck, what about Mikey? Mikey's going to... fuck..."

"Mikey's with me, Frank."

"Wait what?" Frank jumped a little at that, almost as if it was the last thing he was expecting, but then again, Gee and Mikey were kind of supposed to despise each other's existence, but then again, death changed people. Death changed everything.

"He went to Pete's earlier and he was the first to know, and he came over straight after. He's with me right now - you can talk to him if you want."

"Hey." Mikey continued on from his brother, and receiving nothing but silence for far too long afterwards.

"You're not alright, are you? What did his dad say to you? He told me to fuck off basically before telling me that Pete shot himself like a thousand times, and really, it just fucked with my head... I only wanted to come over to say sorry and I can't, fuck I can't anymore. I can never say sorry."

"Neither can I. I... was so pissed at him, and it's my fucking fault, I-"

"Look, Mikey, as much as I hate you, it's not your fault, it's not anybody's fault, it shouldn't be, that's just wrong - this is just so fucking fucked, okay?"

"Gee said that." Mikey smirked a little, glancing at his brother.

"Yeah, being around me so much he must have picked up on some of my fantastic and wise qualities. Anyway, look, I'll come over, okay? I kind of need to tell the others but I can put that off for just a little longer."

-

Ryan hadn't left Patrick alone for pretty much the last twenty four hours and to say the least, Brendon was starting to get just a little agitated.

After all, Ryan's parents weren't home and Patrick was most certainly doing an awfully good job of being a cockblock, and that was not something that Brendon's hormones could appreciate.

"He has to be here, doesn't he?" Brendon didn't quite seem to fully understand the concept of discreet; well actually, he didn't seem to understand it at all.

"He just told his best friend that he's liked him for years and the guy fucking freaked out on him - everyone fucking freaked out on him. Just fucking have a shred of empathy, will you, Brendon?" Ryan rolled his eyes at his boyfriend, glancing at Patrick across the room and trying not to care too much about him but really, he didn't know why, but he just couldn't help himself.

Patrick was important and Ryan couldn't help but hate the fact that he was the only one who seemed to realise that.

"Yeah because fucking Patrick's the only one that has problems at all worth noticing, of course, and then of course just because he's fucking quiet and troubled he's some sort of special fucking snowflake, huh?"

"Fuck you." And all eyes flew to Patrick, still sat in the corner but now looking up at the two of them, and apparently having heard every single word. "Fuck you, Brendon."

"He's just fucking upset that the guy you like doesn't fucking like you - everyone goes through that loads of fucking times in their life and I really just don't get what makes this and what makes Patrick at all special."

"Maybe it's just the fact that unlike you, he's not a fucking asshole." Ryan spat, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend and making his way across the room to Patrick and sitting down beside him as Brendon continued to glare at him.

"You know what? If you're going to fucking flirt with him when I, your boyfriend, am just sat across the fucking room, then you know what, Ryan? Fuck this. Fuck us." And just like that, Brendon grabbed his coat and stormed out, leaving both Patrick and Ryan utterly wide eyed and confused.

And Ryan didn't start crying until a minute into the silence between the two of them, because no matter how hard Patrick tried; he just couldn't look at this like it wasn't his fault.

"It's my fucking fault and all over again-" Ryan didn't let him finish that sentence - he just couldn't let Patrick hate himself, and he was with a lack of a reason why, well other than the fact that he cared, and for once, he let that be enough: explanations and complications just fucked everything up and no one could deal with that again.

"It's not your fault. Brendon's just… uhh… being Brendon… he'll be fine, we'll be fine." And really Brendon just couldn't help but sound just he was trying to convince himself more than he was Patrick.

"I need to speak to Pete- well, I uhh… want to…" Patrick trailed off, his eyes hitting the floor as he exhaled loudly. "I'm going to mess things up again, though, aren't I? I just know I am, I just-"

"You're not."

But then Ryan received the text that made everything fall apart, once again, but this time, it was just so much fucking worse than before.

Pete shot himself last night. We need to talk.

"Frank's just texted me…." The words fell from Ryan's lips but really, they seemed to hold no meaning, because like this nothing seemed to mean anything anymore.

"What did he say?" And Patrick was so innocent and so fucking naive and he didn't deserve this - he didn't deserve to know, he didn't deserve this mess.

"Just look- I, I can't-" And as Ryan handed his phone to Patrick, they both fell into tears as everything, just everything, fell apart.

"It's not true - it can't be fucking true- I, it's not- he wouldn't, he just wouldn't. He wouldn't do that to me, he's my best friend, I- he wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't..." Patrick's repeated words faded away like a broken record as he broke down sobbing into Ryan's shoulder; the milkier of the two couldn't even fathom forming some kind of response or some kind of explanation for Patrick, because despite how much he hated to admit it, he had nothing, and they had fucking nothing left.

"He did, Patrick, he did." And Ryan's were followed by nothing but a silence polluted with the occasional quiet sobs from Patrick, muffled against Ryan's shoulder.

"Will Brendon forgive you?" Patrick asked, changing the subject completely and leaving Ryan to think and perhaps even lie to himself as he tried to avoid the immediate and almost obvious answer of 'no'.

"Maybe. I'll just have to talk him- I, he's quite stubborn, just-"

"Nothing's ever going to be alright is it, Ryan?" Patrick's gaze fell to the floor as silence filled the room for entirely too long.

"No."

-

Brendon would have liked to say that he regretted walking out on Ryan like that, but Brendon Urie had decided that he didn't have regrets a long fucking time ago, and that was just something that the seventeen year old already knew that he was better off just not thinking about, and perhaps just even forgetting entirely, but he couldn't do that - not really, not ever.

And maybe Ryan did deserve an apology but he didn't deserve the right to give him one; Brendon knew he was a headache and he knew that Ryan and Patrick needed space and that it was probably nothing, but really, he loved Ryan and he just couldn't help but be jealous.

Brendon had discovered that he really couldn't help a lot of things.

He reckoned that perhaps he should just go the park and wait for this to blow over and possibly bury his conscience in nicotine - that usually worked, not that Brendon particularly wanted to bring too much light to his smoking habit. He knew by now that he was addicted: it was coping method and not just a hobby anymore, and that was entirely what separated him from Frank who fucking smoked because he could. Brendon smoked because it was the only thing that cleared his head - it was the only thing that made him okay, it was the only thing that made him forget.

Everyone had to forget, didn't they?

But there was just something about today and about this mess that Brendon couldn't forget, and dear god, he hated that - maybe it was just the fact that he was painstakingly in love with Ryan Ross, who had done nothing but ignore him for Patrick recently. He wasn't even trying to be an asshole for once, Brendon just really didn't understand as to why Ryan had to involve himself in other people's problems.

Surely Patrick's crush on Pete should only be between Pete and Patrick, and perhaps Mikey, if he was still Pete's boyfriend after he walked out yesterday? And Brendon liked being ignorant, he liked the bliss he had in not knowing what had happened, and liked pretending this was all trivial and believing it.

And then Brendon liked believing that the biggest problem he was facing today was getting over his ever-growing ego in order to apologise to Ryan at some point, but then he got the phone call.

Then, Frank called his cellphone, and just like that, everything fell apart.

Of course, at first, Brendon hadn't a clue as to what was going and just how his life was about to fall apart, and all the hands of a phone call.

And at first, Brendon didn't even think it would be Frank that was calling him - after all, the two of them barely even spoke at all, and he even went as far as to assume that it was Ryan calling him, baring either an 'I love you', or an 'I hate you'.

And really, even the latter would have been preferable to what Brendon received instead.

"Brendon, this is important - are you with Ryan and Patrick, because-" Frank spoke all at once and all too fast: he was nervous, to say the last, and Brendon was relatively unempathetic about it, but perhaps with the state he was in right now, maybe he couldn't be entirely to blame.

"I'm not with Ryan." And it hurt to say aloud, and that was entirely what had Brendon sitting down on the grass in the outskirts of the park, putting his phone down on the ground and on speaker as he lit himself a cigarette and prayed that it wouldn't take more than the remainder of this packet to make everything better.

"Well, okay, can you get him and Patrick because this is really important-"

"I'm not with Ryan. We broke up, Frank. Patrick's still with Ryan though." Brendon sighed out, inhaling enough nicotine to numb his headache for just a moment. "I guess it's them that you want to talk to urgently, and not me."

"You deserve to know as well. We all do." Frank sighed out after a moment, deciding that perhaps it would just be easier if he didn't comment upon what had happened between Brendon and Ryan - he could deal with that mess later, his head was already cluttered as it was. "Pete shot himself last night."

And despite how many times he said it, it never got any easier, and it never seemed to fell anymore real - this just felt like one big fucked up nightmare for Frank, and he wanted out. He wanted to fucking wake up, and he wanted to wake up right fucking now.

But he couldn't. Nobody could - there was no real fucking way out of this.

"Fuck..." And that was the only response Brendon could pull from his lips, because fuck, everything was so fucking fucked, and this wasn't stupid, and this was his business, because it hurt, and as much as he hated Pete, he'd fucking never want to see the guy with a pistol pressed to his temples, ready to pull the trigger.

"I think we all need to talk as a group, like even if things are fucked between us, we need to talk this out and we need to sort this out. Is Ryan's house still an option or?"

"No, it's not Frank." Brendon knew that all too well, and as much as he fucking hated it, there was simply nothing that could be done about it.

"Look, me and Mikey are at Gee's - Mikey's brother and my boyfriend, so look, come over here and we'll tell everyone else to as well - look we just need to sort this out. And some asshole with long greasy hair and answers the door and tells you to fuck off just tell him that he's an asshole and that Gee's invited you over." Brendon chuckled a little at that.

"Okay. I really want to meet this fucking boyfriend of yours, you know?"

"Oh wonderful." Frank rolled his eyes, sighing out and ending the call, allowing himself to smile, even if just for one moment, because that at the very least made things just a little better.

And maybe, just maybe, it was easier to just ignore how fucked up this all was than actually acknowledge and try and sort it out.

-


	24. This Chapter Is Painful But Brendon's Best Sarcastic Comment Makes Up For It

"This is all so fucked up now he's dead because I feel bad hating him, and surely it's fucked up not to hate him but to hate Mikey with all of my being, and I really do fucking hate Mikey so much - I mean, he cheated on me and he's an absolute arrogant stuck up asshole, but his boyfriend shot himself... maybe the one person he really cared about... shot himself... and you can't help but imagine what it must be like to live in his head right now."

Alicia spoke all too much about Mikey and Pete entirely, yet Bob didn't seem to mind at all - he cared far too much about Alicia to give a damn however she screwed things up or didn't, and really, Bob was even beginning to think that he was just a little in love with her, and there was nothing quite as fucked up as that.

But really, there was no one quite as fucked up as Bob Bryar, the world's worst drug dealer.

"He's going through a tough time right now, and so are his friends, that's for sure." Bob sighed out, his breath visible in the cold evening air of the park - the place was desolated and it was late and a girl like Alicia just shouldn't have been here at all, but she'd insisted and had just like that 'bullied' Bob into accompanying her.

Not that he minded at all, of course.

He just had to keep up appearances, because she could never know how he really felt about her, because it was messed up and he knew that she deserved so much better than some shitty ass drug dealer who lives in some asshole's bungalow for the most part. Not that he was to be blamed for that; his house was tiny and fucking cramped and Bert's hospitality could be easily exploited with the aid of pharmaceuticals and the like.

"I just don't know how to feel about him, because I sure as hell don't want to talk to him, but it makes me look like some sort of bitch if I don't and I fucking hate how I'm sort of obligated to care so much about what everybody thinks of me, fuck, I wish I was just some fucking nobody sometimes, you know?" And really, Bob hadn't a fucking clue as to what she meant by that.

"You really don't have to care. Stopping giving a shit was the best thing I've ever done, and really, it's not that hard, okay, maybe I had some sort of help in the form of drug abuse, but-" She didn't quite let him finish, determined to prove a point here.

"But in high school it's fucking different because you're with these people everyday and what people think of you kind of dictates how you live your life and how you feel."

"I can see that it's certainly fucking with how you feel." Bob sighed out, sitting down beside Alicia on the bench that she'd stopped at. "Look, do you, personally, want to talk to Mikey about this?"

"I'm scared that he'll try and get back with me after this, like I'm option number two to him, now that Pete's gone, it's my fucking turn. He's such a fucking man whore - I fucking hate him, but I can't help but care, even if it's just a little." She brought her knees up to her chest before sitting cross-legged upon the bench, watching as Bob lit himself a cigarette.

"You can just text him or whatever - you don't have to talk to him in person, and then you can just delete the response if you really don't want to look." And Bob reckoned that that was the only genuinely useful piece of advice he'd given anyone, ever. Alicia was special, to say the least, and still to say far too much entirely, in Bob's eyes.

"Like I didn't delete his number." She scoffed, sighing out and watching as Bob began to smoke: the exhaled nicotine just as visible as his breath.

"Everyone has Mikey fucking Way's number- well, not me, personally, but Gee does, and I could quite literally get it for you in under a minute." Bob even retrieved his cellphone from his pocket at this, and Alicia sighed aloud, leaning closer to Bob.

"Yeah, you're right - I'm being stupid about this... just putting it off and shit. I just need to tell him that we can't date again but that maybe I don't hate him quite as much as I think I do, and that I'm sorry about Pete, and that it's not his fault-"

Before she'd even finished, Bob handed his phone to her. "Text him from here if you like."

"Yeah." She pulled on smile - forced, but a smile nonetheless and began to type out a message onto Bob's phone.

And Bob didn't look, because maybe it was better if he wasn't curious, and if his head was anywhere near that close to a seventeen year old girl's cleavage. Yeah, definitely better if he just sat here and smoked whilst he waited and tried to think about Pete in a mournful manner and not just as the guy that Alicia's ex-boyfriend cheated on her with.

"I've done." She announced, handing the phone back to Bob, who forced his lips into a small smile as he pocketed it again. "Don't tell me when he replies and don't tell me what he says - just delete it, okay? I don't want to know... I don't want to get fucked up and involved in him again."

"Okay." And then, further silence as Bob tried to argue himself out of reading the response and the original message when he received it.

"He used to watch me at netball practice, you know?" She blushed a little as she said it, knowing that Mikey was spending his time there in the hopes of catching nothing but a glance up her skirt.

"That sounds kind of creepy, actually." Bob admitted, and tried to ignore the word that his head was screaming at him in response: 'irony'.

"Well, it was - he was just there to look up the stupidly short skirts, and sometimes Pete was there too - not for me, Pete's gay, but he talked to Mikey a lot. That was when they hated each other's guts- well, they didn't exactly stop, they just sort of started loving each other too - I mean that's so fucked up, but-"

"You still like him, don't you?" Bob sighed out, hating to admit the truth. "You've just hated him enough to suppress it recently, but now, you're letting it killing you."

And at that, Alicia could only look up at him and nod.

-

Needless to say, Bert was not entirely happy with the presence of six teenagers in his house, and the six teenagers were not exactly happy with the presence of a pissed off, kind of stoned twenty something year old that seemed to hate everyone and everything.

And really, just about everyone was happy once he had decided that he caused enough of a scene and stormed out, leaving the six teenagers sat awkwardly in the living room, all avoiding looking at certain people, and Frank's crossdressing boyfriend sat somewhere in his bedroom trying to convince Bob not to come back here for the next few hours at the very least.

Eventually, however with promises of free booze, Bert gave in, and Gee gave himself one final look in the mirror before finally going down to meet these people that he'd heard all too much about, because really, these were Frank's friends, and what they thought of him kind of mattered far more than it should have done.

And really, he couldn't help but notice the stares as he sat down on one sofa between Frank and Mikey: Ryan, Patrick, and Ray had taken the one opposite them, and Brendon found himself awkwardly sat alone on an armchair that he'd pulled over.

"So, yeah... I'm Gee, Mikey's brother, Frank's boyfriend, this is my house... I... I guess that there are some things that we need to sort out... okay?" Gee had to admit that he was fucking terrible at this.

"What I'm struggling to comprehend is how on earth a dude in a miniskirt and Mikey Way are related." Brendon, of course, felt it necessary to add his sarcastic little comments, and thankfully, Gee found himself smiling a little in response.

"Brendon, we're not fucking here to discuss his fashion sense, but to talk about Pete and all the shit you started-" Ryan was far too eager to pounce on his boyfriend, and not in the way that just about everyone would have preferred.

"Look... guys..." Frank interrupted, sighing out, the room falling to silence that was only broken by the occasional sob from either Mikey or Patrick: both of whom had remained silent throughout this whole 'meeting', and really, it was ridiculous to call it that. "Gee," He turned to address his boyfriend and began to gesture as he pointed people's names out. "That's Ryan, Patrick, Ray, and Brendon."

"Can we just stop feuding long enough to stay calm throughout his funeral and then whatever... Ryan and Brendon you can just ignore each other and-"

"Ray, I'm sorry, but that's not the fucking point. Things should go back to how they used to be." Frank interrupted, not wanting to lose just about the only close friend he had right now, but some things just needed to be said.

"Yeah, Frank, that's not going to fucking happen unless Pete gets magically fucking resurrected, okay?" And Gee really couldn't but feel like he should have said something when Ray yelled at his boyfriend like that, but Frank didn't seem all that fussed so he forced himself to just leave it.

"Ryan will you ever fucking stop acting like Patrick is your fucking son or something? Like, lay off, next thing we know, you'll be taking him into the city to see a fucking marching band." This was dubbed Brendon's sarcastic comment of the 'meeting' number two, and of the day, probably somewhere in the seven hundreds, and overall, probably the best one he'd ever made.

"I just care about him - you know, like you don't care about anyone at all-"

"Wait... hold up a fucking minute..." Gee stopped the two of them, and everyone, even Patrick looked up at him with a glare. "What even is the deal between you two like aren't you supposed to be fucking head over heels married couple esque?"

"What? I talk to him, okay?" Frank blushed a little, burying his head in his boyfriend's side to avoid further embarrassment, but of course only fucking things up further.

"He's being an insensitive asshole about Patrick-" Brendon didn't let Ryan finish, getting up and making eye contact with his no longer boyfriend.

"I'm fucking jealous because I fucking love you and you're acting like you fucking love him." Brendon sighed out and the silence hung for far too long entirely.

"You're a fucking idiot, you know? Come here." Ryan gestured to the space next to him, but Brendon ended up sitting on his lap instead, and as Ryan seemed not to mind, Frank began to reckon that maybe they would be fine in the end.

"I'm so confused." Gee leaned over, whispering in Frank's ear and it seemed that Mikey'd heard to, cracking a smile, and then sitting up a little at that.

"Look..." Mikey sighed out, biting his lip, and glancing at his brother far too much as he began to speak. "We need to hold it together for him, okay, because I love him, and although Patrick loves him too... that doesn't fucking matter, because we're friends here... and- and... in his note, he said... he said that he loved us both, and I'm so sorry that he's gone and this is fucking fucked, but I can't hate you, Patrick, if he couldn't."

Patrick forced himself into a small smile, pushing his glasses up his nose and speaking for the first time. "Maybe you're alright, you know, Mikey."

"Maybe I am." Mikey shrugged, and then, everyone was okay, and everything was going to be okay, or at least thing were good enough for it to be something that you could convincingly lie to yourself about... well, everyone, except Ray: who still looked at Mikey far too often and far too long and really, Frank seemed to be the only one whoever noticed.

"Geeeee!" The twenty five year old's eyes widened dramatically as he stood up to see none other than Bob fucking Bryar stood in the doorway, despite what he'd specifically asked, and then the door slamming behind them, as Alicia joined him, her eyes practically falling from her sockets as they made contact with Mikey's, and with what she'd sent him earlier, this was fucking fucked.

"Alicia-" The word fell from Mikey's lips like a fucking ton of bricks, but there was no chance in hell that she was going to keep quiet long enough for him to actually say something.

"Bob, don't you think that maybe he said we shouldn't coming over for a fucking good reason?" She snapped out, turning to Bob, who was staring between Mikey and Gee like some sort of deer caught in the headlights.

"Oh, I just thought that he was having kinky sex with Frank or something-" Bob shrugged it off, and really, just about everyone was wondering exactly Bob was on right now, though Gee had mostly decided that perhaps he really didn't want to know.

"For fuck's sake, Bob. We're leaving, okay?" Alicia sighed out, deliberately avoiding Mikey's gaze as she grabbed Bob's arm, but it appeared that Mikey was far too stubborn to be having any of that.

"Is he your new boyfriend, then?" And really, he wasn't sure that he intended it to be so, but Mikey's words just couldn't be ridden of that sarcastic edge.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Mikey, your boyfriend's just shot himself and you're asking if I'm single? And to say that you fucking wonder why he did it-" And it was only as she'd already said it that she came to realise just how far she'd gone, and really, this was too far on a whole new level entirely.

"Alicia, don't..." Bob sighed out, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the door. "Look, we're just going to go-"

"How about you just fuck off, bob?" She yelled, pulling away from him and storming back into the living room, meeting Mikey's gaze in the utter silence: consequential of her presence. "I didn't mean what I said to you - you don't deserve an apology."

"Since when did you fucking apologise?" Brendon snorted, being the first to speak up and doing so with an unexpected but essentially characteristic arrogant tone. "His boyfriend's dead, and all you can do is bitch at him because he casually asked if you were dating that guy- whatever his name is-"

"Bob." Alicia finished for him, exhaling loudly. "His name's Bob."

"He looks like a fucking asshole to me - no offense, but I wouldn't date him." Brendon continued to go just too far, Mikey have retreated back into the sofa, pulling his knees up to his chest and regretting ever saying anything in the first place, because they thought ever thing was fixed and fine, but right now they were a sheet of fucking glass - easily smashed, painful to pick up the pieces, and fucking difficult to tape back together. And of course, taped together glass shards are nothing like a pure, untouched sheet of glass.

"Brendon, just lay off - Bob's a nice guy." Frank spoke up at that, pulling out of Gee's grasp to stand up and catch Bob's gaze from where he stood rather awkwardly near the door. Arrogance in full swing, Brendon only snorted in response. "Bob's my friend. And it doesn't matter who Alicia is or isn't dating, okay? Just let them go."

"Will you ever stop acting like you're fucking in charge here? You think everybody fucking likes you don't you, Iero? Just because-" Gee was not letting Brendon finish this time.

"Do you fucking want me to kick you out of my house?" He stood up beside Frank, who had to pull his twenty five year old, miniskirt clad, asshole of a boyfriend back down onto the sofa as Brendon exhaled, exchanging an indecipherable glance with Ryan, before dripping it.

"We were supposed to fix things." Patrick exhaled once Bob and Alicia had left; his voice quiet, timid, and barely there, but still so damn important.

"We have - Frank, Brendon, apologise to each other, and then we're all okay." Ray forced a smile upon his lips, and honestly, Frank just wanted things to be as simple as that, and for that, and for Pete, and for every time he hated Pete, and for every time he failed to understand what on earth was going on inside Pete Wentz's severely fucked up head, he said sorry.

"I'm sorry, Brendon."

"I'm sorry too." Brendon added, with perhaps just a little nudge from Ryan.

"We'll be okay, then? We... we just need to keep it together for his funeral, okay? His dad's not going to want us there, and even less if we're just fighting with each other about nothing." Mikey sighed out, grabbing his cellphone and beginning to read off the screen. "Saturday - ten in the morning."

"How do you-"

"Dad's a funeral planner." Gee sighed out, and really, it felt kind of alien to refer to his own father as just that, and if that wasn't fucked up, then he didn't know what was.

"The fact that you two are related still fucks with my head." Brendon sighed out, pulling out his cellphone and replying to a text from mum: something menial about when he was coming home and what he wanted for dinner.

"Well, technically, we're not as I have been disowned- what? Seven-" Gee began, furrowing his brows, and exchanging a look with his brother.

"Eight." Mikey corrected him, chuckling a little. "It was eight, because there was that time when you were sixteen and you dyed your hair like fucking bright red, and dad did not like that."

"No." Gee grinned, shaking his head. "He did not like that. Yeah, I've been disowned eight times."

"That sounds like you're keeping track." Ryan added, grinning a little.

"Well, it's impressive." Frank smirked and Gee gave him a gentle shove, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend.

"Yeah, Frankie, you and those seven stepdads of yours-"

"No, it's eight. Eight now, anyway-"

"She's got another one?" Gee exclaimed, eyes practically bulging out their sockets.

"I know."

"I have to meet him."

"Yeah." Frank grinned, a little, wondering just how well that would go down.

-

Patrick couldn't help but feel alien, out of place, and at times, not even real, without Pete. And that was nothing more than fucked up to a whole new degree, but Patrick had come to accept that there was very little he could do when it came to controlling his emotions.

If he could have just stopped loving Pete, then he would have never felt anything and he never would have told him, and then, Pete never would have killed himself.

And Patrick was telling himself that it wasn't his fault at least a hundred times a day now, but still he didn't quite believe it, and with every time, it only seemed far more idiotic and unbelievable - he couldn't keep lying to himself like this and he just had to accept it and deal with the consequences.

Pete had been happy with Mikey and really, Patrick hated to admit it, but Mikey Way made Pete smile more than he ever had before, and all he'd done by loving Pete was utterly fuck up the best thing Pete had ever had, and in turn, not only destroy Pete's life, but Mikey's, Ryan's, Brendon's, Frank's, and Ray's too.

It was Patrick's fault, but his knowledge of that was just something that he had to keep to himself, otherwise people would try and mess with his head and argue him out of it, and he'd lose the one chance he'd ever had at seeing straight, because it was all too clear now, he needed to stop, he needed to stop having feelings and he needed to stop messing with people's feelings, and he needed to stop the words that did so.

And it was just that which brought Patrick Stump to the churchyard without a single word having passed his lips, for almost a day now, and for the first time he felt like his sorry was worth something, because a sorry muttered amongst many other meaningless phrases meant nothing at all, but one surrounded in dedicated silence, one never spoken at all, but thought of with all being, just meant everything.

Patrick had been the first of his friends to arrive, and he was almost a little uncomfortable to see Ryan and Brendon making their way down the road: talking - animated gestures and smiles and all too much of it, and it was like they weren't even thinking of Pete at all. Sure, Brendon and Ryan were okay again, and that seemed to be important, but to Patrick it was nowhere near as important as Pete.

To Patrick, nothing was anywhere near as important as Pete, not even speaking, and that was the way things would stay.

"Patrick, hey." Ryan greeted him with a small smile and a nod; the two having changed into a far more reserved demeanour as they'd noticed the sombre look upon Patrick's face, but Patrick could tell, and Patrick hated knowing when people were lying, especially now.

He only nodded in response, forcing a small smile and keeping his silence; nothing was thought of it as Brendon seemed to burst into conversation almost seconds later, and Patrick found himself to be no longer listening at that point, only watching as Ray, Frank, Mikey, and Gee made their way down the road, Gee walking with his arm around his brother who looked awfully close to tears.

And for the first time, Patrick found himself respecting Mikey Way, because at least he seemed to care about Pete at all, and really, Patrick did try not think too much about the fact that he was the one who'd put those tears upon Mikey's face, but he couldn't stop himself, because in Patrick's head, thoughts never truly went away: they grew and shrink at times, of course growing at incredibly fast rates and shrinking almost never, but nothing ever went away.

"Hey Patrick, are you okay?" Ray was the only one of the four that had paid attention to Patrick rather than involving their heads in Brendon's extravagant and highly animated story that had absolutely nothing to do with Pete. Patrick hated that even Mikey seemed to be smiling a little as he watched the theatrical expressions upon Brendon's face - he at the very least, should care. Someone other than him should fucking care, even if just in the slightest.

"I wish Brendon would shut up too." Ray sighed out, following Patrick's gaze and filling the silence: a gesture that Patrick was eternally thankful for. "I mean, this is Pete's funeral... we should be mourning." Patrick found himself nodding rather enthusiastically in agreement - far too enthusiastically. "I'm just scared that Pete's dad is going to kick us out or something, I mean, he and Mikey don't appear to get along very well."

Patrick shrugged, knowing Pete's dad the most out of the group, and knowing that although sometimes irrational, he was a good person, and at the very least, he liked Patrick, and on grounds such as that, maybe they would be alright.

"It's time to go in." Ryan turned away from his boyfriend to address Patrick and Ray, the former, due to his newfound silence, only nodding in agreement as he followed Ryan, whereas Ray found himself engaging in a conversation with Mikey, and soon forgetting about Patrick, and even more so about Pete, just like the others.

"You okay, Patrick?" Ryan asked, looking genuinely concerned as they made their into the church sitting down as a group on a pew nearest the back: not intending to draw too much attention to themselves amongst the crowd of relatively wealthy looking distant and generally elderly family and family friends that were spread across the church.

Patrick nodded in response, pulling on a slightly wider smile, hoping Ryan would just leave him be for this, because he wanted to focus on Pete and that apology of his without people and without words and without things that he could fuck up, because an apology was worth nothing if you did it all over again.

"Okay, but if you get... well 'not okay', promise you will tell me. I know that you're going to be sad - it's a funeral, his funeral, but this is a tribute to him and this is acceptance... from now on, afterwards, we're going to stop crying and we're going to be okay."

And really, Ryan couldn't help but sound more like he was trying to convince himself, rather than reassure Patrick.

-

Patrick found himself slipping away as soon as the actual funeral part of the funeral had finished, as he cared very little for free alcohol and assorted cakes, unlike his friends, it seemed, and Brendon appeared pretty insistent upon staying for the free alcohol and Patrick was starting to wonder if that was really the only reason he'd come in the first place.

And then Patrick found himself fucking crying again, and soon after, running, and soon enough lost, and instantly nowhere, and always nothing.

He missed Pete, but he didn't just miss him - he needed Pete and he knew nothing more than he knew that and Patrick knew everything.

In fact, he often found that he knew too much.

And all Patrick knew right now was that he needed to get away, and that was exactly what landed him breathing heavily and rather close to dying in the middle of the woods. 

He sat down against a tree stump and his world stopped spinning for just a few seconds and as his brain caught up with his legs, he struggled to quite understand how he'd ended up at the other end of town and even just why he'd left.

And it was ridiculous when he came to realise that he'd sprinted across town for the way Brendon Urie had looked at a bottle of red wine, and he hated that Brendon's fucking suppressed alcoholic tendencies were the reason and that it was in fact nothing do with Pete at all.

This should have been for Pete and Patrick fucking knew that, but he also knew that aimless, madness fuelled running was never going to get him anywhere.

"You look like you've just run a whole marathon... dude what the hell?" Patrick found himself jumping a little as a boy who appeared to be about his age appeared from what seemed to be nowhere. "Sorry... I didn't mean to scare you."

The boy sat down at the stump of a tree opposite him, brushing his brown, curly hair out his face as he met Patrick's gaze. "I'm Joe." He pulled a smile, that Patrick wordlessly reciprocated, and he couldn't help but feel bad because Joe was waiting for him to speak with a lack of an explanation as to why he wouldn't, but he had to keep his promise for Pete.

"You don't talk much do you?" Joe eventually found it necessary to fill the silence and Patrick nodded, almost exaggeratedly in response. "You don't talk at all?" He continued, eyes widening and Patrick nodded in a similar fashion. "Oh, so you're a mute?" Patrick shook his head. "It's a choice?" Patrick nodded.

And Patrick liked Joe from the get go; he didn't seem to care that Patrick didn't want to speak, and he even seemed to understand, well as much as he could, and Patrick liked talking, well with gestures on his part, to someone who wasn't fucked over in this whole mess with Pete, even if it was just for a few minutes.

"I was going to ask you for your name but that's hardly a yes or no question." Joe sighed out and Patrick grabbed his phone from his pocket - he wasn't going to spell it out because that, that didn't feel right, that felt like cheating, and for Pete, he fucking wanted to do this right.

Joe watched as Patrick scrolled through his contacts and found the one automatically created for his own phone with his number in and held it up for Joe to see. "Patrick?" He nodded in confirmation, and Joe smiled. "Nice to meet you, Patrick." Patrick smiled as if to say 'you too', and to his greatest surprise, Joe seemed to understand.

"I was also going to ask you what you were doing out here and why you looked so exhausted but..." Joe shrugged, before bursting back into another train of thought. "I'm here to get away from my parents and stuff."

Patrick looked through his texts and held up the one from Ryan with the details of Pete's funeral, and needless to say, Joe was not expecting that. 

"Oh my... I'm so sorry." He exclaimed, wanting to hug his newfound 'friend', but from his lack of confidence in even speaking, he doubted that Patrick would be okay with a random hug from some guy he'd just met. "Pete was your friend?" Patrick nodded in confirmation. "Were you close?" Patrick nodded more than ever before. "Bestfriend?" And again.

"I'm guessing that it's insensitive to ask what happened to him..." Joe trailed off as Patrick brought his hand up to his head, closed his eyes, bit his lip and formed the shape of a gun with his hand, pressing it against his head and then rapidly pulling it away as if to signifying the pulling of the trigger. "He... h-he... killed himself- oh my... I'm so sorry... that's horrible... w-why... would he do that?"

Patrick opened his eyes again, meeting Joe's and leaving the two in silence for a moment; Joe waited patiently, knowing that this was a sensitive topic and that Patrick would respond in his own time.

And then, slowly, but surely, Patrick gestured towards himself with one finger, and Joe only quite seemed to catch on as he was prodding himself in the chest with his index finger.

"You?"

Patrick nodded his head.

-


	25. You're The Only Person In The Room Who Hasn't Touched My Cock

As Brendon entered the comic book store on the outskirts of town, his heart was pounding.

He frequented the establishment due to the significant lack of assholes in the place, well in comparison to the one on the high street next to that fucking shoe shop that Gabe Saporta had a part time job at, and for the cheap prices that went with it, Brendon almost found himself turning a blind eye to the fact that the shop owner very clearly couldn't spell 'rentals'.

Without this gem of an establishment, Brendon would never have been gifted with the knowledge that there are people with suck a lack of intelligence that they're utterly unaware of the presence of the letter 'a' in 'rentals'.

However, it wasn't the shockingly low standards of intelligence that the shop sign set that had his heart beating at something close to twice its normal rate, but the dark hair and the bright blue eyes behind the counter and the person they belonged to.

And still, despite the knowledge that the dark haired and blue eyed individual who worked at the store on weekdays was doing nothing but unintentionally ruining his life, he still found himself frequenting the place far more than necessary, but not without a mind destroying wreck of a guilty conscience as he left after far too long 'browsing' the place and not thinking about the individual who worked on weekdays with the stupidly pretty eyes and the dark hair.

He had a fucking boyfriend, for Christ's sake, he had Ryan fucking perfect Ross as a boyfriend, and even if their sexlife wasn't entirely up to par lately, he still fucking loved that fucking milky asshole of his, and like that, Brendon should never be spending far too much time in comic book stores and staring at cashiers with bright blue eyes, and fuck-

Brendon was screwed, and his head had been exploding for the last two weeks and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. It wasn't like he could just request that the cashier quit just so he could have his life back, and it certainly didn't look like Brendon had the mental capability to just stop going.

And that was exactly what had Brendon Boyd Urie's heart beating at double speed as he walked into the comic book shop with the badly spelt name and found himself immediately meeting the bright blue eyes of the cashier and practically dying on the spot as he realised the store was absolutely empty from the two of them: basically, he was done for.

Perhaps it would have been simple and even easy if Brendon wasn't such an absolute fucking asshole about this: stopping still as he entered and met those bright blue eyes, staring right back at him, and as he continued to show no signs of life, other than an embarrassingly vibrant blush making residence upon his cheeks, it was left nothing more than evident that he'd entered the shop with absolutely no intentions of buying anything at all.

"I swear to God that you come here every single day, without fail, and you've only actually bought about three comics." Brendon was caught entirely by surprise at the voice filling the silence, and really, the only way he could respond at all was with his cheeks turning a darker shade of red. "And I don't even know your name."

"Uhh..." Brendon choked out, finding himself making his way across the store to the till where the blue eyed idiot stood with nothing more than a badly hidden grin. "I'm.... B-Brendon..." He finally managed to remember his own name and he couldn't help but feel stupidly proud of himself.

"So, Brendon, don't mind me, but I'm beginning to suspect that you're not really here for the comics." And just like that, Brendon was screwed. "I'm Sarah, by the way." The cashier added, filling the silence with what was definitely a smirk.

And really, Brendon had to make a conscious decision not to respond with 'I know', because he totally didn't happen take not of just how close that name tag was placed to her cleavage, and he totally didn't, because Brendon was fucking gay enough to declare himself the arch nemesis of the Catholic church, and on top of that, he had a boyfriend, he had Ryan fucking Ross, and yet, the seventeen year old frequented the comic book store with the misspelt name just to see Sarah with bright blue eyes and dark hair, and... the boobs.

Brendon Urie did not look at boobs, Brendon Urie didn't stare at girls, and yet here he was, in the moment, unable to even remember his boyfriend's name, and still feeling like one guilty motherfucker.

"My eyes are up here, by the way." She added after twenty or so seconds of uncomfortably heterosexual eye to cleavage contact had occurred, and Brendon thought about mumbling something about him being gay as an excuse, but there was no way in hell that she was going to believe him now, even if it was the truth.

Hell, Brendon didn't even believe himself now.

"Sorry..." He dragged out, pulling his gaze to the floor and re-evaluating his existence as he tried not to think too hard at just how he was fucking his life over, and really, honestly, this had never been intentional, and this had entirely taken him by surprise, but now that it had, all hope was lost for Brendon's homosexuality, and sanity for that matter.

This was driving him crazy, she was driving him crazy, and really, he needed to go suck his boyfriend's dick or something just as a reminder as to who he was and what he couldn't be, but Ryan cared all too much about Patrick right now and not at all about fucking his boyfriend.

So maybe, it was expected that Brendon's teenage hormones would have lead him elsewhere in times of sexual neglect, but fucking Sarah from the comic book store - Sarah the girl; needless to say, no, this was not something Brendon signed up for at all.

"My shift ends early today." She threw the words into the silence like they were nothing and in that moment, Brendon found himself forgetting about Ryan Ross entirely. "There's a nice cafe down the road." She added as Brendon remained in a stunned kind of silence. "Brendon, you idiot, I'm asking you on a date here!" She resorted to 'slap-in-face' blatant words as Brendon's idiocy outgrew the one of whoever had designed the sign for this place.

And in a star struck, sanity vacant moment of bright blue eye corrupted madness, Brendon found himself with the intelligence of a vegetable and the ability to do nothing but nod his head like the world's biggest idiot.

Sarah locked up the cash register in response and unpinned her nametag, grabbing the keys from under the desk as she met Brendon's eyes. "You're not good with girls, are you?" And really, Brendon could not say that he was.

She giggled, leaving Brendon to follow her like some sort of dumbstruck puppy as she grabbed her bag and locked the place up. "Just a little tip then, Brendon, spending hours in a comic book store everyday for two weeks just to stare at the girl that works there is not exactly the way to go when it comes to making a move."

And Brendon found himself laughing along with her, the silent setting on his phone, had him oblivious to the call from Ryan, and perhaps right now, even his existence in general.

-

Although Joe and Patrick's conversations tended to be awfully one sided, their friendship was not, and even after only a few days of knowing one another.

Perhaps Patrick was just jumping at the first person who really seemed to understand and respect him regardless of everything else and maybe that was a little pathetic, but maybe Patrick just didn't care, because maybe Patrick reckoned that he deserved to have at least one shot at being happy, and it seemed that Joe Trohman was just that.

But despite that, Patrick could never help but be nervous, especially around new people, and especially when these new people were Joe's friends, and really, as he made his way to the address Joe had texted him, he felt like dying, but in a good way, probably.

"Patrick!" Joe exclaimed, jumping up from where he was sat on his front porch, and offered his friend a smile that Patrick found himself almost automatically returning. "You okay?" He asked, concern in his eyes, and Patrick nodded in response: it wasn't like he could at all even consider providing a detailed explanation as to why he wasn't, especially not via either a nod or a shake of his head.

"Andy's my best friend - he's kind of quiet too, I mean, he speaks, but not a lot, and then there's Spencer and Dallon who practically never shut up, but-" Joe was cut off by a rather questionable shriek from inside, which really left Patrick more than fucking confused.

"In the butt? You have it in the butt?"

"I really wish I could explain." Joe sighed out, shaking his head as he led Patrick inside, and Patrick tried not to think too hard about the scratches on his hallway and where the paint was chipped and too many pairs of shoes in the corner, and he didn't think at all and he didn't make assumptions that the world would be better without.

He didn't make assumptions because he knew, instantly, that they were true.

As Joe led Patrick into the living room, he was met with a bearded dude with glasses sat in the centre of the room, on the fucking carpet, cross legged, almost entirely zoned out as he stared at the random ass TV show running on mute in the background, and that wasn't even the weirdest thing: bearded dude without glasses was sat on the sofa with his phone in his hand and a rather concerned expression upon his face, with the final guy - brown hair and a stupid floppy fringe, laughing his head off.

"Guys, this is Patrick. I told you about him earlier." Joe cleared his throat, addressing the room and grabbing Andy's attention within seconds. "That's Andy," he gestured to the guy sat on the floor, "Spencer," the guy holding his phone, "and Dallon," the guy laughing like an absolute asshole.

"Hey. Nice to meet you." Andy got up, smiling at Patrick, and Patrick grinned back: Andy seemed nice enough, he reckoned, although he found himself just a little bit nervous regarding Spencer and Dallon - they were all loud and too much personality, and he almost felt awkward just being in the same room.

"That's the guy that doesn't speak, isn't it?" Spencer asked from the back and Patrick couldn't help but blush a little and nod. "I didn't mind anything by that - I'm sure you're cool." He added, the last part of his sentence aimed at Patrick in particular, who smiled in response to ensure that he knew that it was fine.

"What was that thing about butts? I heard you screaming from outside." Joe asked, addressing Dallon and Spencer, making his way over to the two of them, leaving Patrick awkwardly stood with Andy, and Patrick would have been a liar if he said that his head wasn't spinning- and, hey, maybe this was a bad idea and maybe he should have just politely declined and just not come in the first place-

"Hey, so, Patrick? Joe said you go to the Catholic school - I heard that it's really strict there, like they have nuns? Do they have nuns?" Andy seemed to just about swoop in like some sort of motherly eagle, and save Patrick from some form of social suicide, and from then on, Patrick just knew that Andy was a nice guy.

Patrick laughed a little, shaking his head, and Andy pulled a disappointed face as the two of them sat down on the floor, and trying their best to ignore Dallon screaming something about butts from across the room.

"Sorry about them - I think Dallon's a little drunk or something, almost possibly just a little gay. He talks about butts a lot." Andy sighed out, smiling and shaking his head, and blushing a little as he tried to make this conversation as easy for Patrick as possible, and really, he found himself at a loss for how Joe just seemed to pick this up so fucking easily. "They were screaming about gaysex earlier, by the way - Spencer didn't actually know how it worked, and Dallon looked really personally offended. I mean, he says that he's not gay, but... I mean, he's gay... well, not that he'd tell anyone, he'd get beaten up at public school for that or something, but then again, it's probably worse at Catholic school, isn't it?"

And Patrick couldn't help but think of Pete as he nodded his head.

Because no matter how many new people he surrounded himself with, and no matter how many thoughts he had distracting himself, he always found his thought process drifting back to Pete Wentz and that gun that he should have never pressed to his head.

-

Every brain cell Brendon Urie possessed, although he didn't possess a particularly large quantity, was screaming at him that this was nothing more than a spectacularly terrible idea, and yet the seventeen year old found himself forgetting about his boyfriend and being 'dragged' into a coffee shop with the one person he was never supposed to be attracted to.

"Please tell me that you're not one of those people who have like every kind of syrup and twelve kilograms of cream on their coffee, I mean, like otherwise, I think I might be sick or something." Sarah laughed it off, oblivious to Ryan Ross' existence and the fact that she was 'the other woman', well, the only woman, but, she was largely oblivious to Brendon's supposed extravagant homosexuality.

"I just get lattes, usually, I mean, maybe some cream, I like cream, you know, it's a fun squirty thing, I mean-" Let's just say that when it came to trying not to be blatantly homosexual, Brendon Urie was nothing but terrible, and Sarah was practically in tears.

"You like squirty white cream, huh?" She giggled, rolling her eyes and wondering how on earth that had at all sounded any better in his head. "I'm only joking, come on, it's fine."

And perhaps it would have been if Brendon didn't really like squirty cream, and not just on coffee, but in his boyfriend's butthole, metaphorically, of course. The only white liquid that belonged in Ryan Ross' ass, was well, natural yoghurt, obviously. What else?

The two ordered their drinks, and Brendon made a significant effort to steer clear of cream of any variety as Sarah tried not to laugh, before they sat down at a booth in the corner, and Brendon prayed that this was entirely the other end of town to where his friends usually hung out, because this looked awfully like a date with a girl, and really, Brendon could lie to himself as much as he wanted, but it would still remain as just that.

"So, Brendon, tell me about yourself. Do you actually have any interest in comics whatsoever?" She asked, giggling a little as she stirred her cappuccino, and really, Brendon's blush made the answer evident enough to ensure that the conversation would easily progress even with the absence of a stuttered out, nervous response. "Thought so." She added, pushing her hair behind her ears and meeting Brendon's gaze.

"Sorry... I, I just... I'm kind of bad at dates, and girls, I, this is not what I'm used to, I... I..." Brendon sighed out, shaking his head and attempting to pull himself together. "My friends say that I'm an asshole because I make too many sarcastic comments, yeah, I'm 'supposed' to be this over-confidence egotistical asshole, but that doesn't quite look like it's up to par today. I smoke, sorry if that's a problem, I guess, but my life's kind of messed up right now, also I really like music, that's cool, I guess..."

"I like music too." She added with a smile, and Brendon swore that he was going to bang his head against the table if their definitions of 'music' turned out to be two entirely different things; Brendon was talking about music and not top forty shit, and that would most definitely be a problem. "Real music. I'm in this all girl punk band with a few of my friends and okay, we're not the best yet, but it's fun. I sing, by the way, in the band."

"Wow, that's actually really cool." Brendon's eyes widened, almost shocked to hear it, as although he meant no offense by it, he wouldn't exactly expect Sarah to be the kind of person to be in all girl punk band.

"You thought by 'music' I meant, 'look at me I can play like four one direction songs on the piano and sing slightly off key and totally not in time', didn't you?" She raised her eyebrows, almost accusingly at Brendon as she sipped her coffee and Brendon broke into laughter as his cheeks tinged red.

"Kind of." He admitted, grinning far more than he would have liked to, because not only was Sarah only both unfortunately and unexpectedly attractive, but she was fucking amazing too. Surely, they could just be friends, and surely, this could work, and Brendon was most definitely gay, but goddamn, he was also most definitely attracted to Sarah.

"You should come see us play some time. I mean, we haven't got any actual gigs or anything, yet, but we're practicing at my house on Saturday, I have Saturdays off, as you probably know." She gave Brendon a look at that point: light hearted, but uncomfortably accusing, nonetheless. "I'll text you the address - you should come."

"That sounds really fucking cool, you know." Brendon exclaimed, grinning like a maniac and almost choking on his coffee in excitement, just like an absolute idiot: Sarah found it cute, though, so perhaps it didn't quite matter, at least not as much as the fact that he was technically cheating on Ryan should have.

"So you'll come?" She exclaimed, almost as if she hadn't been expecting that Brendon would actually take her up on such an offer, and really, Sarah wasn't expecting all that much from this 'date', but once he stopped acting like a nervous wreck, Brendon was actually a pretty cool guy, and she could only hope that his taste in music was just as good.

"Sure." He grinned, pulling out his phone to set a reminder, and swiping away the text notification from Ryan, because as he'd said earlier, Brendon's asshole behaviour was certainly not up to standard today, and he needed to change that.

-

"Are you sure it's okay that I come over- I, I... I mean, like isn't this a family thing?" And really, it wasn't helping Frank with the fact that Gee was nervous, then again, Mrs Iero's choice in boyfriends wasn't exactly quite as great as Frank's.

"Come on, you big idiot, I love you - you're practically family, and my mum fucking adores you for some reason, okay?" And with that stupid fucking grin, the seventeen year old dragged his boyfriend in through the front door of his house, and Gee just couldn't help but chuckle as he came to remember just how he'd met Linda Iero, and just a few hours before, how Frank had lost his virginity to him.

"Mum! We're back." Frank called out, and sure enough, within seconds, Mrs Iero had peered her head around into the hallway, her face bursting into a grin at the very sight of Gee.

"Gee! I haven't seen you in far too long - you and Frankie doing alright? You looking after my son?" And Frank was just about ready to throw his head through the cement of the nearest wall.

"Yeah, he's being a good boy for me. I don't like naughty boys." Gee smirked, and both Frank's boyfriend and his mother burst into giggles at that and Frank began to seriously consider head-butting that wall, because this was really not the kind of conversation anyone ever wanted to experience, especially when it involved their boyfriend and their fucking mother.

"Come on, Frank, stop looking like you're ready to commit mass genocide, and get your shoes off and come into the dining room when you're ready, okay?" And with such a casual comment, Mrs Iero disappeared back into the kitchen, and Frank seriously felt like slapping himself, and they hadn't actually met this elusive boyfriend of his mother's yet.

"Frankie, come on, you know I like naughty boys too." Gee grinned at his boyfriend, and Frank simply turned, tossing the twenty five year old an 'I fucking hate you' glare, before taking his shoes off and making his way into the dining room - Gee at his heels.

"Boys, this is my boyfriend-" And Linda didn't quite manage to finish that sentence as the man in the corner turned around, and almost cinematically so, to reveal long dark hair and all too familiar face.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Gee was the first to speak, addressing the supposed 'boyfriend' rather Linda herself, who was just a little taken a back to say the least.

"Well that was unexpected." Aforementioned 'boyfriend' exhaled looking between Gee and Frank as he began to reassess his life, just a little. "Can I just say that this wasn't intentional?"

"Oh for god's sake, Bert." Frank rolled his eyes, shaking his head at what was now kind of almost his 'step-dad'.

"Wait... what?" Linda exclaimed, finally butting into the conversation, which consisted of nothing but a series of concerned stares. "How exactly do you know each other?"

"Bert's my housemate, basically." Gee explained and really Linda rather did look like she was considering throwing her face through a wall.

"Can we like eat now, because I'm really just quite interested in the story of how on earth you two actually met?" Frank snapped, out maintaining eye contact with Bert as they sat down: Bert and Frank's mother at one side of the table, and Gee and Frank on the other.

"We met in a supermarket, you know, romantic..." Linda trailed off, laughing a little and Bert really did look as if he was re-evaluating the purpose of his life right now. "We went on a date and stuff, you know, couple things - he's kind of cute in an asshole kind of way."

"Yeah, I really don't see it." Frank confessed, looking between his mother and Bert McCracken with nothing but the desire to stab himself in the eye.

"Well, you shouldn't - he's my boyfriend." And never did Mrs Iero think that was a sentence she'd have to say to her son.

"Yeah, that really could have helped when he was flirting with Gee." Frank rolled his eyes, reeling off a response and his mother just shook her head as she came to the realisation that this was most likely the most awkward situation ever invented.

"That was months ago, Frank, I've moved on." Bert sighed out, awkwardly dragging his fork around his place like he looked as if he was going to be sick.

"Clearly." Frank added, raising his eyebrows, and Gee gave him a gentle shove, which Frank really saw no need for whatsoever. "What?" He asked, eyebrows raised in his boyfriend's direction.

"Just leave them alone - if they're happy then whatever. Okay, I guess it's kind of weird, but-" Gee attempted to just settle this calmly and freak the fuck out at Bert in the privacy of their own home, but it soon became very apparent that Frank was just having none of that.

"Bert McCracken is practically my fucking step-dad, do you not get how messed up that is?" Frank now raised his voice to a yell, and Gee found himself flashing Mrs Iero an apologetic glance.

"Frank, just calm down, come on-"

"They've fuck- my mum- what the fuck, Gee? That's fucking messed up. My mother has touched Bert McCracken's coc-" And by now there was simply no doubt about the fact that Frank was approximately two seconds away from a mental breakdown.

"Frank, you're the only person in this room who hasn't touched my cock, and I'm really sorry you're feeling left out, but I honestly think Gee might mind." 

-

Dallon Weekes was an 'interesting' guy to say the least, or well, that's the word his teachers seemed to use when they wanted to sugar coat the fact that he only seemed to gain any interest in class at all whenever the topic took a sharp turn in the morbid direction. But no one ever saw deeper than that.

He was just a teenage boy that never really grew out of the gore phase and that was just that, and no one, not even Spencer asked any questions beyond that. It wasn't that Dallon was at all intimidating - he just wasn't worth it, he was just average, just another guy at a shitty public school and his claim to fame was that his best friend, Spencer, once ate one hundred grapes in five minutes for a dare in like sixth grade.

They were grapes with seeds though, so you know, that was probably quite impressive to eleven year olds.

But Dallon was just that guy: he wasn't popular, he wasn't special, but if you said his name, most people could put a face to it, which was probably down to the fact that no one else in the school was actually called Dallon, but whatever, he'd take that as an originality bonus - positive thinking and all that.

Although that was really more of Joe's forte, where as Dallon found himself always looming over a great pit of despair, which really sounded far more poetic and special than it really was, because teachers were liars at best and Dallon Weekes was nothing more than a head case.

He was good at counting, though - he'd give himself that.

In fact, he was in fact the one who had counted out the hundred grapes that Spencer had eaten in sixth grade.

He counted everything: footsteps, people in a room, how long he could hold his breath, the minutes before he lost track and something else caught his attention, how many times Spencer looked at that girl with the wavy hair in Maths, and then divided the number by two because Dallon didn't like big numbers, they scared him, and it was a developed fear, because he couldn't deal with perhaps more than a few at a time or he began to shake and his head began to spin as the sickness crept up his stomach and he made a swift exit.

Because Dallon counted until he felt sick and after he threw up, he started all over again: he had no goal, no end achievement with this, it was just what he had to do and it was just who he was, because his head only seemed to work with a monotonous ticking of a clock in the back of his mind as the seconds ticked away and he called another day a waste of time.

And as he finally got out of school as the bell rang and Spencer went on to him for at least ten minutes about the girl with wavy hair in Maths class and he counted how many times he smiled as he did so, and then just how many times he lied in denial of any interest of her - it was ridiculous, but Dallon just left it, otherwise he'd probably only be spurred on to continue describing the exact shade of her hair.

But soon, Spencer had Joe and Andy to talk about girls with and Dallon had the comfort of knowing that they walked the other way home to the shittier part of town and Dallon went home to a house so big, and yet so empty: no one was home until eight, usually, and that gave him far too much time alone with his own thoughts.

And perhaps that was nothing but bad, but due to his rather skewed perception of reality, to the seventeen year old, it was nothing but good.

He counted the stairs and how long it took him to ascend all three flights to the attic and buried himself in his duvet for a good ten minutes as he stared at the ceiling and tried to occupy his mind with something other than the ticking time bomb that never went away.

He counted wrappers on the floor, posters on his walls, how many times he blinked, how many times his friends texted him, how many invites out he refused, and eventually atoms in the room, but it never quite worked out, and he always found himself getting up from the duvet and just staring out through the roof window at the sky.

He counted shades of blue and counted just how many ways in which they were both meaningless and meaningful: meaningless always won, meaningless won when it came to everything, and yet Dallon counted, because that was all he fucking did.

He had his own bathroom: upstairs in the attic, and it was rather private due to the fact that his parents never came up here and that he was quite alone in his own little part of the house.

He didn't mind for the most part: he could count aloud and no one would hear him, and no one would call him crazy and no one would point out the obvious fuck ups in his daily routine.

And everyday Dallon counted the steps to his own private bathroom; he counted the footsteps from the window where he stopped and stared at the shades of blue and then he counted the amount of times he considered turning back and the amount of times he stopped himself.

Everyday, he locked the bathroom door and just fell down to the floor, meeting his reflection in the mirror, and scowling, and he counted as he blink and as his chest rose and fell as a consequence of increased breathing.

It was then that he finally did something with the numbers he'd counted in that day, because although meaningless always won, there was always just one thing that mattered, and that was what Dallon preferred to count - calories.

He hated big numbers, and as his head filled itself with the total, the seventeen year old felt the all too familiar sickening feeling in his stomach, and within seconds that he found himself counting, he was puking and flushing and falling back to floor again as he reset the total and started counting again.

-


	26. gerard dyed his hair therefore i am too unstable to think of a chapter name

Sarah Orzechowski found herself lying to her parents for probably the third time today, and it really wasn't something she should be keeping up, or be nearly as good as at she was, but it wasn't like she was lying to her parents to go out and deal heroin or something.

It was just that they reckoned an eighteen year old 'young woman' shouldn't be worrying herself with music and stupid friends. And really, they were the kind of parents that made Sarah curious as to why she hadn't been married off yet, but of course, she was thankful to be over exaggerating there, even if just a little.

And it was just that her parents really would not approve her being the lead singer of an all girl punk band, although they probably would have to be relieved that she wasn't hanging around with 'strange men', but then again, within seconds they'd probably have a heart attack about running the risk of their daughter 'becoming' a lesbian.

It was ridiculous enough to ensure that Sarah even felt like lying was the right thing to do: it wasn't like she was actually hurting anyone, well, other than her parents' self pride, but whatever, that was something she could live with as she muttered something to her mother about extra time at work to help pay for university fees, and left.

Really, she was just so fucking glad that she was the singer here, because there was no way in hell that she was going to be able to smuggle a musical instrument out of the house every week without her mother ever questioning it.

And of course, she was the only member of the band who had assholes for parents, but then again, half of the band didn't even live with their parents anymore, but at the very least, Jamia Nestor was there playing guitar to ensure that she wasn't the youngest.

She waited until the end of her road before she let her hair down - quite literally, and pulled off her sweater to reveal an 'L7' shirt, which her mother would probably burn if she ever caught onto the existence of, but as established, Sarah Orzechowski was a fantastic liar.

And as she was within a few houses of Kitty's, (Kitty, being the band's drummer, and a pretty kick-ass one at that, too) she was tying the particularly ugly sweater around her waist, and fixing her hair for the seven hundredth time, because she could be kick-ass and punk rock, and yet still cute as fuck at the same time.

"So you finally decided to turn up, huh?" Lindsey caught Sarah's attention out of nowhere, raising her eyebrows as the eighteen year old approached her with nothing short of an entirely pissed off expression upon her face. "They sent me outside to look for you - something about you being ravaged by a gang of possums or something, I don't know..."

"Yeah, it was my mum being a royal bitch, and not a gang of possums, surprisingly." Sarah let a grin cross her lips as the two made their way inside.

"She barely let's you outside the house, Jesus Christ - I haven't seen you in far too long." Lindsey exclaimed, expressing her personal disgust towards Sarah's mother, which was something the two shared.

"Yeah, I met this guy a few days ago and I haven't had anyone to talk about him to and it's killing me." Sarah exclaimed, using the term 'killing me' very literally, because after being punk rock as fuck, cute boys was the most important thing in her life.

"God, Sarah, you're so fucking straight!" Lindsey exclaimed, rolling her eyes in indication of the sarcasm behind her words.

"I'm sorry, I'm not the reason we have to interrupt practices, you know? When our bass player decides to just have a make out session with our guitar player like half way through a song, yeah." Sarah shook head in mock disapproval and Lindsey just rolled her eyes as they made their way into the attic where Kitty and Jamia had finished setting up and were now just generally dicking around.

"Sarah!" Kitty exclaimed, looking up as the two made their way upstairs. "It's been like two weeks, girl, fuck, I missed you - come here!" And then the eighteen year old found herself trapped in a particularly smothering hug and Jamia was laughing her ass off.

"Jamia?" Lindsey asked, eyes widened at her girlfriend who had actually just collapsed on the floor in laughter, and Kitty pulled away to look at the mess on her attic floor, leaving Sarah just a little dumfounded. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Frank fucking Iero." She choked out, taking a few moments before sitting up and regaining some composure. "Oh my god." She placed her phone back on the table and made eye contact with girlfriend, leaving an incredibly dorky grin not far behind.

"What?" Kitty's eyes widened as she looked between the two of them, and then to Sarah who was really as equally confused as her.

"Yeah, checking the contact before you sext, kids." Jamia burst out between giggles. "He sent me a message meant for his boyfriend, and oh my god... t-that's some private shit, woah-" Jamia was cut off as her ringtone blared into the room, and as Lindsey passed her the phone, she wasn't at all surprised to see that it was none other than Frank Iero ringing her.

"I'm having questionable mental images." Kitty admitted, her words directed at Sarah who watched as Jamia switched the call to loudspeaker like the great friend she was.

"Frank, you fucking idiot!" She practically yelled down the phoneline and as Frank's sheepish, embarrassed as fuck voice came in response, all four girls were gathered around the phone in the corner of the room.

"This is on loud speaker, isn't it? Jamia, I fucking hate you!" Frank exclaimed, as he received nothing but badly suppressed laughter in response. "God, how many people have seen my dick?"

"Oh, don't worry I didn't actually show anyone the message." Jamia reassured him, meeting Kitty's gaze and mouthing a quick 'yet'. "I can't believe you let him call you 'cumslut boy', like still, Frank that was months ago, fucking hell, it really turns you on, doesn't it?"

"That's not something I'm going to admit on loudspeaker is it, Jamia?"

"You kind of just did, you know, asshole?" Jamia grinned, glancing at the others who all had similar expressions upon their faces.

"Fuck you." And just like that, Frank hung up, leaving Jamia to burst out into a fit of laughter.

"Jesus Christ, what was that?" Sarah asked, laughing like hell, because really, hell was exactly where her parents would be sending her if they could see her right now.

"Oh, don't worry, they're all gay sluts in Catholic school."

-

Spencer Smith, widely known as the kid who ate a hundred seeded grapes in sixth grade, wasn't exactly the brightest emo at the concert, but then again, emos didn't tend to frequent looking particularly flamboyant, did they?

Basically, if Spencer was trying to come off as the world's biggest idiot, then he was most certainly exceeding everyone's expectations - you know, the gullible on the ceiling kind of person, but he made perfect best friend material for Dallon, as he never ever found himself questioning why his friend never seemed to eat.

And Dallon was good with that, and Spencer was glad that his best friend never laughed at him for asking the most stupid questions, and they worked, and they were totally fine, but then Joe and Andy came along.

Dallon, liked Joe and Andy, don't get him wrong, but Spencer seemed to love them and Dallon felt far too much on the outside, and Dallon felt like Joe noticed every time he did something slightly suspicious, especially regarding the lunch he ate, or well, the lack of it.

Dallon just hated how with Joe and Andy, he had to eat.

At least this way, they said nothing about it, and maybe he was fine just puking his guts out at any other possible opportunity, but Dallon fucking hated eating - it was like polluting his bloodstream and his head grew dizzy when the numbers got too big, and Joe only paid more attention the iller Dallon looked, and he knew that he didn't mean badly at all, but he couldn't help but feel as if Joe just didn't know where things started to stop being his business.

Neither of them ever mentioned anything though, but the looks were enough, and it was the same thing all over again today as Dallon did nothing but pick at the most disappointing salad in the world, and continued too politely refuse as Joe rather insistently offered him one of his chips.

Spencer, still, noticed nothing, or at least, that was what Dallon thought, because Spencer wasn't stupid - his head was just different. In the same way that Patrick wasn't shy, just quiet, and even more so now. It was all logical and it all made sense - Spencer had secrets to keep too.

And the happy go lucky, idiotic, dorky personality was just the perfect form of camouflage, and in fact, just so perfect that Dallon didn't ever suspect a thing at all, and although Joe thought it a little odd at first, it was soon looked over in favour of Dallon and his suspicious eating habits: in a way, Dallon was Spencer's shield, and really, Spencer was Dallon's too.

"You know, I met this girl the other day." Andy broke the silence, and in turn, the stone cold gaze that Joe and Dallon held. "She's kinda cute, you know... I..."

"Ask her out then, Hurley." Joe forced his lips into a smile as he turned away from Dallon, and Dallon almost found himself exhaling in relief, because fuck, Joe knew something was up and Joe knew it like hell, and soon enough, it was just going to get mentioned

"Ugh, but I'm not good with girls. It'll take me years just to build up the confidence, and-"

"It won't take you nearly as long as it's going to take Dallon to eat that goddamn salad." Joe interrupted, and Dallon's jaw dropped as three pairs of eyes fell upon him, and this was it - this was Joe addressing it, and seriously, he was fucked. "All you ever eat is salad, I swear to god."

"It's healthy..." Dallon sighed out, pushing it aside and scowling. "I've finished now anyway, I-"

"You never eat anything, Dallon, I swear to god-" And really, Joe was pushing it here as Andy and Spencer simply on looked with wide-eyed stares.

"I swear to god what I do and don't eat is none of your business, huh? How about that?" And just like that, Dallon was throwing his fucking salad at Joe and storming out like it was nobody's business, and Jesus fucking Christ, not that Joe would ever let anyone admit it, but they were people applauding him as he did so.

"I'll go after him." Spencer sighed out, breaking the silence and getting up, following Dallon with what was a significantly less exciting exit.

Honestly, though, Spencer hadn't the slightest clue as to where he'd actually find his best friend, but that soon became just about the least of his problems as he found himself walking straight into an all too familiar guy with an all too familiar smirk.

"Ah, you were hiding from me, weren't you, Spence?" The guy laughed it off, dragging Spencer down the corridor and around the corner: into privacy and a dark corner that was nothing but uncomfortable for the both of them, and well, with reason. "You got it yet?"

"No, I would have given you it if I had." Spencer sighed out, shaking his head firmly as he came to realise that just avoiding people he owed drugs to in school was in no way a permanent solution. "I promise - look, I'll get it soon, I guess I-"

"Don't fucking guess. You know, don't you, Spence?" He raised his voice, his eyes practically burning holes in Spencer at this point.

"Yeah, I... I... do." 

"Fucking good."

And just like that, Spencer was slammed against the wall and left alone to fall onto the floor as he struggled to get himself out of the world's biggest mess, because really, you should never ever ever be in the position of owing a dodgy guy off the street in the wrong part of town.

Because really this was the worst kind of favour anyone could ask for, and it even outranked sexual favours with elderly relatives.

-

"It's fucking ridiculous and you know that." Gee sighed out, sat smoking in his garden, housemate sat by his side, smoking something far less legal. "It's almost like you're just doing this to difficult, you know." The twenty five year old sighed out, pulling his shirt further down his thighs and perhaps regretting the decision of wearing nothing other than panties with it.

"Could say the same about you and Frank." Bert sighed out, exhaling and turning away from his housemate, wondering just whether he should have regretted just what he'd let slip, but whatever, he reckoned Gee would get pissy no matter what he said.

"Frank and I are fine, we're in love, and you're just.... fucking his mum..." Gee shook his head, blowing smoke rings like an idiot. "It's fucking messed up, you know."

And Bert could only snort in response. "Yeah, you're fucking messed up too - you know."

"Yeah, whatever - we all are." Gee sighed out in some form of response, turning away and secretly wishing he'd brought some form of alcohol outside with him, because his throat was beginning to burn without the familiar taste of something bitter and sharp trailing down it and setting his body alight with perfectly fucked up intoxication.

"No... Gee." Bert stopped the conversation like that, throwing menial chatter into the serious kind of silence and just with a look. "You're getting worse, and he doesn't know it - he thinks you're fine. Everyone thinks you're fine, except me, because I know you keep pills in your bedside drawer, and I know that look in your eyes when you want a drink. And I see it now."

"I'm fine." Gee contorted his face into an expression of nothing but over exaggerated ridiculousness, and Bert was beyond the point of lying to himself about this now. "Seriously. You fucking drink and look you're smoking weed now - like all the time. Fuck off, Bert."

"It's just the look, though, and the mornings when I find you passed out somewhere and vomit all over the bathroom, and it's... it's too much, Gee, especially if he doesn't know anything. You need to tell him at the very least, for fuck's sake, as much as I hate to admit it, he's your boyfriend and he loves you."

Gee sighed out, throwing his gaze out into the night sky above and ignoring Bert's words completely - just for a moment of two. "He's too young to have to worry about shit like this, I don't want to fuck him up."

"Oh, so he's only too young when it's beneficial to you." Bert shook his head, catching Gee's gaze with a 'you're a fucking idiot and we both know it' look, which of course, Gee only chose to brush off and ignore, but soon enough, he'd run out of excuses, and lying to himself just wouldn't quite work anymore.

"I just don't want to upset him, for god's sake!" Gee exclaimed, finishing his cigarette and stumping it out against the patio pavement they were sat on, and of course then proceeding to light himself another one as Bert watched with raised eyebrows. "I haven't even got a problem, Bert, fucking hell - you're overreacting, acting all fucking maternal even. Maybe it's the fact that you're dating someone's mum - my boyfriend's mum."

"You say that as you light what? Your fourth cigarette in a row?" Bert just fucking shook his head at Gee, who somehow managed to shrug it off for what was just about the thousandth time now. "You're getting bad again, and you know it. You're just too fucking stubborn for your own good though."

"Okay, fine, maybe I feel like shit again." Gee admitted, practically spitting his words out as he did so. "But I'm not fucking addicted to anything, and I haven't got a problem, and Frank doesn't need to know. My head's just fucked up a little, and I need to deal with that."

"You dealt with that last time by dressing like a girl, huh? So why is it fucking alcohol and pills this time?" Bert sighed, never having thought that he'd actually be advising his housemate to crossdress, but whatever, there's no point living life if it doesn't come with surprises.

Gee only shrugged, glancing down at his thighs and tracing with his finger where his miniskirt would fall to.

"Seriously, fucking enter a beauty pageant - I don't care. But don't fuck yourself up, okay? I care about you an awful hell of a lot, you know that, don't you, Gee? I care about you despite you being the biggest fucking asshole, and seriously-"

And then Gee was kissing Bert, and everything just seemed to fall apart - maybe it was the pills he'd had earlier and the vodka he didn't, or maybe just the weed in the air, or maybe Gee was just too good at lying to himself, and maybe Bert was just too good at making him feel better, and far too bad at thinking straight when hot guys in barely any clothes were kissing him.

Well, thinking straight when you were involved in a gay making out session was pretty difficult regardless of circumstance, but whatever.

And alcohol and pills were forgotten and kisses moved into something more and the two went back inside, and Gee didn't even look at the vodka on the side of the kitchen as they made their way into Bert's room, and from the on, everything was dizzy and far too clouded for common sense to apply, and it was wrong, but Gee felt like nothing more than a poster boy for fuck ups, and in his mind, all that was wrong, was just right.

And fuckups, just became fucks.

Fucks and moans and thoughts devoid of seventeen year old, kind-hearted, naive boyfriends, who didn't deserve this at all.

Also, Frank's mum, but was that ever really going to last, come on?

-

Mikey's head was spinning as he walked, and he came to a premature conclusion as he attempted to find a reason for anything.

Pete was everything to him - there was no way around that, and without him, he just couldn't deny that his heart hurt just a little, well just a hell of a lot, and nothing made sense and everything was just that - nothing, and yet, he was still breathing, but it really didn't feel like he was living at all.

Yet, Mikey found himself almost overly stubborn when it came to the fact that he wasn't going to be a whiny little bitch about this, but it just didn't help when his parents knew nothing and could never know anything. His whole life was one big secret - one big lie.

And of course, it was only a matter of time until the truth came out. Not that coming out by choice would ever really be a possible option for Mikey: he'd seen what had happened to Gee, and he was never quite as strong as his brother was, and he knew that he'd never be able to take it, because the truth was that Mr and Mrs Way would rather have no children than two gay sons.

And nothing hurt quite like the truth.

Or perhaps that shirt in the corner of his room that Pete had left over here from one night when Mikey's parents had been away and everything had been okay, and the seventeen year old could meet his own reflection without a shortness of breath.

But now it was all dizzy and heartbreak and not a word between his lips, and really, there was no way around the fact that he was making an effort in isolating himself from his friends, and well everyone. Ray had noticed - Ray fucking cared, and for once, it wasn't wanted: Mikey didn't need it, he didn't need Ray, he needed Pete.

And he was far too stubborn for compromise, even if that same stubbornness would kill him in the end.

Mikey Way wasn't afraid of death anymore, and still heaven and hell were still just as false to him - he really wasn't Catholic anymore: he'd given it up as he'd taken up Pete and really nothing changed, he felt nothing more or less.

But perhaps Pete's death had just been God getting back at him, but Mikey reckoned he didn't want to believe in a God would let people die, especially people like Pete Wentz, especially people that he cared about.

He went to Pete's grave far too often, and yet far too little at the same time: it was reality put against his skewed perception of reality, and he couldn't quit it. Mikey's head was a sinking ship, perhaps, Pete was his anchor, but now there was nothing but open ocean and depths that he never quite reached.

And it was just the sound of his parents car in the driveway: leaving, that kick-started Mikey's head, and in turn the grabbing of the little box from under the bed and items inside and just how that stupid little box and its contents could destroy his whole world, and yet how he still hadn't the guts.

Then just like that, his attention was snapped away by nothing more than an all too familiar dial tone: Ray, and for the first time, just as a distraction from the box beside him and the cowardice it highlighted, Mikey picked up, and he hated how Ray almost seemed surprised as he did so.

"Mikey? Wow, you actually- I haven't spoken to you in days, it's ridiculous: you can't keep bunking off school as well, you can't be 'ill' forever." Ray was wrong, because Mikey really could, and there was nothing like the box under his bed to serve as a constant reminder.

"I can." Mikey persisted, sighing out and falling back against his bed as he tried to think of anything other than Pete and the box at the end of the bed and just what his head was bringing him to. "I really can, fucking watch me, Ray."

"I'm not going to." Ray sighed out and really, Mikey knew it was just a waiting game until, just like everyone else, Ray Toro gave up on him completely. "You're my best friend and I miss you. Look, do you want me to come over?"

"No." Mikey shook his head, despite the fact that it was no use and even pathetic in a phone conversation. "I'm fine, look, you can just talk to me for a while - what's happened with everyone else? What bullshit have I missed?"

"Not much actually. Brendon and Ryan are going through a rough patch I think though, I'm not sure why though: Brendon's just being weird, and I mean... Frank's been hanging out with Jamia an awful lot lately, like it's not the same without you. Remember when it was just me, you, and Frank?"

"Yeah, when the only thing that mattered to me was Alicia fucking Simmons?" Mikey snorted aloud, and really, how he'd progressed: one pathetic heartbreak to another, and that was all that would ever become of him.

"When you were insistent upon learning croquet." Ray laughed down the phoneline at that, but Mikey didn't even crack a smile: memories meant nothing, and his head was spinning like crazy, and it was probably a side effect of something he'd taken earlier, but he'd taken far too much to put it down to one thing exactly.

"Yeah, I was pathetic. We were pathetic. Remember when I thought Frank had a fucking girlfriend, for Christ’s sake!" Mikey exclaimed, trying not to think too hard about just what Jesus Christ would think of this conversation, needless to say, he wouldn't exactly approve. "And then, my brother... I- fuck, why my brother?"

"Mikey, can't you just let it go?" And at that, Mikey lay frozen, and everything fell back into nothing as he tried to pretend that this was happening as everything started to feel far too real again.

"No, no. I really fucking can't." And with that, he hung up and threw his phone across the room with little regard for the consequences.

It didn't matter - nothing did.

And he looked at the box once again, and he still didn't have the guts: it was pathetic.

Pete could do it, so why couldn't he?

-

Alicia eyes were sat upon the horizon and her ears were devoid of every word Bob was sending into them.

They were sat a top a hill somewhere on the outskirts of town: Alicia just needed to get away, and within the past few weeks, Bob Bryar, the fucking drug dealer, had just about become her best friend.

But then again, the easy access to free drugs at just about all times could really be nothing but beneficial, not that Alicia was into any of that shit, but now she was far past the point of judging people based on who they were and what they sold for a living: be it milk, lemons, or weed.

"I hate that I still care about him, but I really fucking do, like maybe I even l-like him again... I mean, he's an asshole and it's ridiculous, but I'm a fucking teenage girl: ridiculous is practically in my job description." She sighed out, leaving Bob lost for words for the first time, but the silence was unimportant and the words that could fill it were just the same: with Bob and Alicia, it was just being in each other's presence that counted.

And perhaps that was just something that Alicia Simmons was beginning to take for granted.

"He cheated on you." Bob exclaimed, shaking his head, because he was fucking stoned and still he could make sense out of the fact that Mikey Way was one fucked up asshole. "He's a prick, basically. You're an idiot if you get back with him."

"So you're saying that I'm an idiot?" Alicia asked, eyebrows raised as she fell into the trap of actually taking anything Bob Bryar said seriously. "Wow, aren't you fucking lovely, huh?" She snapped, leaving Bob to force himself out of rolling his eyes and actually trying to comfort her in some way.

"I didn't mean it like that - he's the idiot, you're Alicia fucking Simmons, you're like a fucking twinkly fucking star, motherfucker." As mentioned earlier, Bob was stoned, quite stoned, and that's really all there is to say about that.

"Yeah, and you're a black hole because you fucking suck." Alicia smirked as she let slip what is nothing more than an absolutely hilarious and wonderful joke - work of a genius, of course, like whoever wrote this deserves ten Oscars and a slice of Gerard Way's eyeball.

"And Mikey's the Milky Way." Bob added, grinning like an asshole, because this world space pun thing was amusing him far too much. "What? He's milky."

"No, that's Ryan." Alicia shook her head, eyes stern. "From what I've heard, Ryan Ross is one milky motherfucker."

"So who's the sun?" Bob asked, talking about the burning star, and not the newspaper: if he was talking about the latter though, the answer would be an absolute fucking idiot.

"Mikey, because he burns your eyes out when you look at him."

Someone give Alicia Simmons a medal, basically.

"Harsh." Bob added, smirking a little, because this was a lot better than when Alicia was deciding she was still in love with that asshole.

"True." Alicia shrugged it off, lying back against the grass. "He is an asshole, I mean, my head's kind of fucked up: guilt and what not, also I have like a really bad headache, like I think shooting me through the temples would actually help with the pain."

Bob laughed aloud at that, and Alicia couldn't help but grin because she was one hilarious motherfucker. "Why've you got a headache? Too many pills, huh?" He joked, pulling a fucking little bag of pills out of his pocket, because he's Bob fucking Bryar and he just can. "Sorry." He added, catching Alicia's glare.

"No, Bob, it's because I'm bleeding from my va-."

"Uhh." Bob decided to cut her short, in an attempt regarding the preservation of his sanity, perhaps.

"Yeah." She sighed out, turning away from Bob, who had lied beside her on the hill - after all, she couldn't let this get entirely too soppy and romantic, could she? "Anyway, what planet would I be? I'm not just being a fucking star - that's kinda shitty."

And this was exactly where Bob's limited knowledge of astronomy, and well, just about everything (except drugs, but kind of also drugs) backfired.

"Which ones the closest to the sun?" He asked, like a motherfucking idiot, which Alicia was kind of used to at this point.

"Mercury?" She asked, eyebrows raised a little as she struggled to find any logic in this at all, but then again, this was Bob fucking Bryar: the abundance of logic was kind of the point here.

"Yeah, you're that one."

"And reason why or is the sun the only thing you know the name of in our solar system?" She well prepared herself for a 'yes' in response, because knowing Bob, she wouldn't be at all surprised if that was true.

"No, it's because it's closest to the sun and therefore the hottest. You're hot. That's what I'm aiming for here." Alicia rolled her eyes, shoving him a little.

"You fucking tried, Bryar. I'll give you credit for that." She shook her head as he began to pout at her, moving close to him as she considered his confession: wrapped and almost drowned of meaning in humour, but a confession nonetheless.

"I just called you hot. I want a kiss." He giggled like an absolute asshole, pouting his lips, and gaining a 'friendly' slap across the face for it.

"Yeah, Mercury's fucking hot, but get close and you'll fucking burn. Four hundred fucking Celsius, bitch. I'll burn you alive."

And she was right, not just metaphorically, though.

-


	27. In Which Mikey Way May Or May Not Die

The only good thing about this party was the cocaine.

And that was just about the only thing that the irrational and rational parts of Gee's brain could agree upon, mainly due to the fact that this party was pretty shit, and there was absolutely no question about the fact that Bert had only dragged him along for the sake of free drugs, and things had just gone south the very moment that Bert had disappeared into the crowd with a random girl at his side.

That fuck was nothing to Bert, and everything to Gee and entirely the wrong way, because even with the copious amounts of cocaine, his head was still spinning itself into oblivion, even to the extent that Gee would consider oblivion to be his current destination, and a permanent one at that.

People were just blurs and the lights hurt his eyes: noises, loud and then quiet - rinse and repeat, and there wasn't much else to say about the world around him. It was just a cycle of sitting in the corner of a party he didn't belong to be at, drowning his guilty conscience and really just himself in the white powder.

And he still wasn't an addict.

He still wasn't going to let Bert be right: Gee knew that for certain, but not nearly as much as he knew that crack cocaine was all he had left.

He hadn't spoken to Frank since that night with Bert and the following morning kneeled over the toilet puking his guts out as he tried to expel his system of not just the alcohol but the deed he'd done, and just how spectacularly he'd fucked up.

And nothing hurt him more than forcing himself to ignore every call from Frank and delete every message before really reading it.

Eventually he just turned off his cell entirely: a coward's escape, of course, but if Gee wasn't a coward at this point then the world had clearly taken far too much pity upon him.

And as he ran out of cocaine, he knew that he was utterly fucked as he came to doubt that his legs even still functioned at this point, rendering unable to get up and get some more or just anything to fade it all away, and that was what led him to nicotine: a back up plan, but better than nothing.

And as he attempted to pull his knees up to his chest, he came to accept that maybe his legs had gone numb for real, but somehow that didn't matter at all, and he simply found himself staring down at skinny jeans again: this wasn't him, this wasn't Gee, and he knew it, but there was just a part of him that couldn't face the world as himself anymore.

He was just a poster boy for the empty and insane as he put the cigarette back to his lips and wondered just how long it would before his consciousness dulled out and he'd found himself waking up somewhere he'd couldn't even remember: that was a mystery to say the least.

"You don't look as if you're really having the best of times, if I'm honest." Gee jumped at the sudden voice beside him, shaking a little as sound came back to him and it was less blurry and more music loud enough to make his ears bleed.

"I'm not." He admitted, sighing out, finally meeting the stranger's gaze: bright fucking blue eyes, and a smile that he couldn't quite trust, but the guy was evidently sober at the very least.

"Yeah, I could tell." The stranger laughed a little at that, smiling to himself. "I'm not either: I'm just here with my friend, who fucking disappeared within the first five minutes. I'm Dallon, by the way."

"Gee." And the twenty five year old almost felt proud for being able to remember his own name - well, he couldn't move his legs at this point so it wasn't exactly that absurd. "Same thing here as well, but I doubt if that guy is really my friend at all. I just live with him, I mean, we had sex like a few nights ago, but it was fucked up and I want to kill myself for it."

"Don't kill yourself." Dallon sighed out, turning to face the twenty five year old, leaving Gee shocked as he found nothing but genuine care in the almost stranger's eyes. "Why was it fucked up?"

"Because I have a boyfriend that I haven't spoken to since it happened and he doesn't know and I'm pretty sure he hates me at this point and soon enough his best friend is going to get her girlfriend to fucking kill me for it, and sometimes, some questions just shouldn't be answered. I don't want to hurt him, but I have and it's killing me, it's fucking destroying me. And the cocaine isn't helping either, my head just fucking hurts and I'm going to pass out soon, I know."

"Look, this sounds kind of forward, but this party isn't the best place for either of us right now." Dallon sighed out, biting his lip and turned away, awaiting the slap across the face. "I know you don't even know me and I could be an absolute asshole, but, I have an empty house this week- not in that way, I just... you can stay over... I don't-"

"I get what you mean, and that would be fucking nice... but I kind of can't fucking move my legs right now." And just like that, Dallon Weekes was taking Gee Way by the hand and pulling him up, the twenty five year old leaning onto the younger of the two as they made their way out of the party and down a few roads.

And that was just how world's collided, and that was just how Gee forget about his boyfriend for the second time as they made their way inside, Dallon only getting the change to hang his coat up before it was all prolonged gazes and kisses slammed against walls, and consciences waiting to be guilt ridden by the morning.

But to drugged up and fucked up Gee Way, morning seemed worlds away, almost universes away - to the extent that morning itself and a world outside of this oblivion didn't feel real at all.

Gee was a sinking ship, Frank was his anchor.

Was.

Not anymore.

-

Early mornings were not Gee Way's speciality; Dallon had already gotten up, 'eaten', taken a puking trip to the toilet, drowned his digestive system with ice cold water and taken Advil before Gee even made his way downstairs.

"This isn't my house." Gee sighed out, not even bothering to make eye contact with Dallon as he got himself a drink of water, and only meeting Dallon's eyes as he sat down at the table. "Oh, you're Dallon. Sorry, I was quite fucked up last night."

"Yeah." Dallon sighed out, biting his fingernails and drawing his gaze down to the floor with the very vivid memories of last night almost pinned at the front of his mind. "You don't remember anything, do you?"

Gee sighed out, racking his brains as his gaze trailed around the white walls of the kitchen: the whole room was too fucking white, empty, plain, lifeless, devoid, fucking nothing. The house didn't even look lived in, and the dull glimmer of Dallon's eyes didn't make it look like he was living at all.

"There was a party and then there was us, and- fuck, we fuck- we fucked..." Gee threw his gaze down at the ground as he came to realise that this was the second time in a week, and really, Frank Iero might as well shoot him through the fucking heart because that was exactly what he deserved right now. "My boyfriend... I..."

"I'm sorry... I fuck everything up." Dallon choked out, turning away, and fuck, Gee barely even knew this guy, but he was not going to let him hate himself for a mistake that he'd made.

"It's my fault, come on." Gee got up, grabbing Dallon's hand, and probably worsening the situation here, but this was just a comfort thing, he promised himself, he was just being nice, and he was just lying to himself. But it was okay, because right now, he could still convince himself that it was. "You're not a fuck up."

"I am." Dallon choked out, and before either guy knew what was happening, Dallon was in Gee's arms, and it was just hugging, it was just friendship, just comforting- fuck, Dallon was crying, and Gee was still fucking thinking about himself. "I can't even eat properly. I fucking... Gee... I fucking- I... I... I can't even eat... I eat like nothing and throw it all up, and I have to count the calories and everything and I'm always counting, I'm counting your heartbeat right now."

"Fuck, Dallon, you need to eat." Gee whispered against the teenager's shoulder, sighing as he held him tight, Frank long forgotten in favour of the guy who'd just confessed one of his greatest secrets to the stranger he'd fucked last night. "My parents disowned me because I'm a crossdresser."

Dallon pulled away from Gee at that, eyebrows raised. "You don't look an awful lot like one, if you don't mind me saying."

"I don't have the confidence anymore, I'm just fucked up, I love wearing miniskirts and far too much make up and they make me feel good, but I can't bring myself to anymore, and I just don't feel good- I never feel good I-"

"Me neither, Gee." Dallon sighed out, finally pulling away from the older man and grabbing his hand, leading the two of them into the living room, where they sat on the sofa, wordlessly, but at this point, they just didn't need words anymore.

"Dallon, can we be friends? I can't just leave this house and never see you again, I-" Gee choked out, gaze diverted from the teenager as he struggled to quite get the words out, and then, before he even knew what was happening, Dallon was scribbling a phone number on his arm with a thick, black sharpie.

"You're important, Gee. Wear the skirts, make yourself feel better. Feel better. Fix things with your boyfriend, tell him you love him, tell him sorry, tell him that it will never happen again." Dallon was just all too good at fixing other people's problems, and useless when it came to his own.

"I'm not a liar." Gee sighed out, pulling his knees up to his chest, his breath catching on the part of him that just wanted to stay here with Dallon forever, in a world where nothing quite felt real.

Real was the very last thing that Gee wanted to be.

"My friend Joe asked me why I didn't eat the other day and I just stormed out: I couldn't tell him anything, I just have nothing to tell him. I'm a fucked up, starved, calorie fearing piece of shit just doesn't quite work."

"You're not fucked up, you've just got an eating disorder, you need to eat, of course, but it's hard, I get that, the whole world's fucking hard and the whole world's fucking fucked and sometimes I really want to die and one of those times is now." Gee sighed out, bringing his knees up to his chest in an effort to avoid Dallon's gaze.

"I'm fucked up. Accept it, Gee, everyone else has." Dallon sighed out, meeting the twenty five year old's gaze, unable to force back the thoughts of last night. "I'm so sorry about us and last I, just-"

"Dallon, look, it's fine, I fucked up, you're fine, look, fuck, you're fucking beautiful, you're fucking lovely, and you can't keep blaming yourself." Gee demanded, raising his voice in a relatively feeble attempt to get his message across.

"And you need to stop lying to me because you've got a boyfriend." Dallon snapped out unexpectedly, catching Gee entirely by surprise. "Stop telling me I'm pretty, stop flirting with me when we can't work, because you're the nicest, cutest guy I've met and this is fucking with my head. I'm just a fuck up and you're you - don't get my hopes up."

"Dallon, fuck-" Gee sighed out, the thought on his mind and the words on his lips: a confession, to the wrong person and too late, but a confession nonetheless. "I'm an alcoholic, I'm a fucking addict, and I can't admit that to myself."

"You admitted it to me."

"You're different, you understand, you're perfect, you're you."

And just like that, twice became three times, with two lips meeting in a way that they never should: cowardice and confession, stupid feelings and headaches, forgotten boyfriends and parents away always.

Fuck ups worked better together, as alone they were nothing but lost causes, and maybe we all just needed a hand to hold, a pair of lips to kiss, or somebody to fuck, again.

-

Mikey closed his eyes.

Mikey stopped breathing.

Mikey stopped thinking.

Mikey was scared.

Mikey was fucking scared, to say the very least.

Pete had been his hand to hold in the dark: the idiot who reassured him that everything would always be okay, and now, it was just darkness, and Mikey was fucking scared, because nothing was okay, and his plan of lying to himself had back fired at the worst possible moment.

He spent his evenings alone now, and neither of his parents even seemed to notice, let alone care, and soon nights alone in his bedroom in the dark, thinking about those kind of bad thoughts: darkness thoughts - thoughts with the box out and open, soon nights alone in his bedroom turned into nights sneaking out and nights sat at the canal: gaze lost somewhere up there with the stars.

Mikey closed his eyes.

Mikey stopped breathing.

Mikey stopped thinking.

Just for as long as he could - it was never long, but it made his left just a little more tolerable with the thirty seconds in which he could just wish this all away.

Ray kept calling though. 

Mikey did have to go back to school eventually, but there was nothing saying that he ever had to even speak to Ray Toro or anyone. In fact, Mikey was more than prepared to hide away in the back of empty classrooms until he graduated, and would then proceed to spend his days hiding away in the back of empty conference rooms.

It was a vicious cycle, and Mikey was falling, and the reflections of stars on the water were the only thing that kept him sane most days.

He didn't even know why he came here, but it balanced his thoughts out at the very least, and the canal had even given him a place to throw his cellphone, and finally shut Ray up - no one else fucking cared about him: Frank spent the majority of his time at school with Jamia now, and Ray and Patrick spent time with Brendon and Ryan.

He wasn't needed, he wasn't necessary.

He was just like the reflections on the water: temporary, and there, but not really - fine as it meets the eye, but if you look closer, you see every ripple and every scar and fucked up fracture.

Mikey Way was fucked up, but fucking good at pretending otherwise.

But not tonight.

Tonight was a kicking stones into the water and counting how long it took them to sink kind of night. He wondered how long it'd take him to sink, but tonight wasn't the night for finding out.

The town was dark, but very much still alive, and Mikey just struggled to believe that the same applied to him.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Mikey jumped at the sudden voice beside him. "The stars and the water. The whole world's pretty."

Mikey scoffed, pulling his gaze away from the girl beside him. "I can list you a thousand things that'll never be pretty, Alicia."

"And I can list you a thousand reasons as to why you're wrong." Alicia grinned like an idiot into the darkness: Mikey wasn't even looking but she just wasn't listening. Not everything she did was to impress Mikey Way, in fact, nothing was anymore. "Everything's pretty. You just have to look at it right."

Mikey made it evident, via a continued display of various skeptical facial expressions, that he was absolutely not convinced.

"There are no ugly people: someone just might not particularly find that person attractive. That applies to everything - nothing's shitty, nothing's fucked up, you just have to look at it the right way. You just have to make the ugly beautiful, you just have to make the best out of everything."

"So, my boyfriend shot himself and I'm just supposed to fucking continue smiling like that's a good thing?" Mikey could only fucking laugh in her face with that one, but Alicia wasn't at all fazed: this was Mikey, after all, she wasn't expecting him to understand, especially not at first, but she wasn't going to give up, not now at the very least.

"Out of the two of you - he's ruined his life, you don't have to ruin yours too. He'd want you to be happy: at least one of you should have made a good run out of life, otherwise you're just the fucking Romeo and Juliet cliché and that's just a messed up waste. Don't be a could've been, Mikey Way."

"We're a could've been, Alicia." He reminded her, finally meeting his ex-girlfriend’s gaze, and dragging himself away from the water and the imperfect reflections and thoughts of Pete Wentz for just ten damn seconds, and already, it was too much.

"And it's best that way, because we could have been great, but otherwise, you would have never dated Pete, and I would have never made a best friend in Bob." She sighed out, grinning like an idiot with thoughts of strawberry poptarts on her mind.

"It was easier when my biggest concern in the world was your butt, you know?" Mikey sighed out, and Alicia couldn't help but give him a little shove for that, because not just anyone was allowed to talk about her butt so casually.

"Yeah. It's a pretty butt though, isn't it?" Alicia grinned, pulling her knees up to her chest as she threw her gaze out across the water.

"Everything's pretty when you look at it right." Mikey quoted her, smirking like an asshole.

"Maybe there's still hope for you, Mikey Way."

"Maybe there is."

-

Patrick was the world's biggest third wheel, and still Brendon felt like he was the odd one out here with every smile and inside joke between Ryan and Patrick, and then, the stomach churning thoughts that every single smile and inside joke between him and Sarah brought.

Sarah was lovely - fucking cute and funny, and made him nervous in all the right ways, and most importantly, she didn't make him feel like shit by choosing some kid over him all the time, but of course, she had to be a girl and Brendon had to be gay, or so he was convinced.

It was just how he'd always been, and he most certainly wasn't welcoming of this sudden change: for one, it was fucking his head up completely, and despite the fact that he kind of was cheating on Ryan, kind of, he still couldn't help but be a fucking jealous bitch when Patrick so much as even smiled at Ryan.

Brendon Urie was a mess, to put it simply, and of course, that barely even covered the mess going on in his head right now: it was just Ryan's house now and Sarah and her band in like thirty minutes time and just how that made him want to be sick everywhere because he was nothing short of a world class asshole.

"Brendon, are you even fucking listening?" And everything seemed to fade into nothingness as Ryan snapped at his boyfriend - technically, but really, not at all, not anymore - they weren't working and it was clear to the whole the fucking world, except Ryan Ross, it seemed. "Are you even here?" He laughed it off, and Brendon forced a smile, looking his boyfriend up and down and trying his best not to just fucking punch him.

"Are you trying to be an asshole or can you just not help it?" And suddenly, of course, Brendon had gone entirely too far, as it took Ryan a few seconds just to fucking look at his 'boyfriend' and process what he'd actually just said to him.

And of course, Patrick sat kind of awkwardly away from it all, silent in the corner, still without an explanation for Ryan, who'd been begging him for one right up until Brendon had arrived. It was especially obvious to Patrick that something was fucked up between the two of them, but what everyone was stumped upon was whether or not they'd ever have any hopes at fixing it at all.

And really, if they didn't even manage to admit that anything was wrong, then they were destined to do nothing but drown together.

"Brendon, you're the one who's been nothing but a fucking pain - being a bitch to everyone, especially Patrick, being off with me, not even being here half the time, and just ignoring me, like turning your phone off for days on end- you know what? I want a fucking explanation." Ryan met Brendon's gaze at this point, ignoring Patrick's existence in favour of a newfound bitchy kind of not quite jealousy. "Give me a fucking explanation, Brendon."

"You're always ignoring me for Patrick." Brendon sighed out, swallowing all words and confessions regarding 'Sarah' like the world's guiltiest fucking coward.

"Yes, well Patrick won't fucking speak now the guy he was in love with rejected him and then shot himself, so really, Patrick kind of needs a friend right now. Did you ever even think about that or is it all just 'me, me, me' in your head?"

Ignored, and thrown about in speech like nothing, Patrick got up from the corner and slipped out of Ryan's front door without the two even noticing - he wasn't wanted here, and that was clear, but okay. Everything was okay, really, you just had to keep lying to yourself and eventually, it would all be okay.

"Yes, because to be upset and pissed off with you for ignoring me, I couldn't possibly be thinking about anyone but myself, could I?" Brendon snapped, words thrown in Ryan's face like it was nothing, because at this point, Brendon Urie really did have absolutely nothing to lose besides his own dignity, and really, that was fucking long gone.

"What the fuck is up with you, Brendon, seriously? You ignore me, you're pissed off with me, all we ever do is fight - about Patrick, about Pete, about everyone, about you, about me, about everything and anything, and then you turn off your phone and don't answer my calls for days and it's fucking ridiculous, that after you're being the hardest fucking person to tolerate, I'm expected to not even fucking talk to my best friend." Ryan exhaled loudly, words whizzing round his head entirely too fast, and really, he needed to slowdown: they all fucking needed to slowdown.

"But you don't ever fucking care about me anymore, Ryan, that's fucking obvious. And yeah, maybe I'm a jealous fucking bitch, but all I ever hear from you is 'Patrick, Patrick, Patrick' and I barely spend any time with you, let alone time alone with you, because god forbid that Patrick Stump could live with you constantly holding his fucking hand for more than five fucking seconds." And just like that, Brendon Urie completely fucking lost it.

"Oh for fuck's sake, it's not like I'm cheating on you, Brendon." Ryan sighed out, laughing it off and leaving guilt to crawl back up from the pits of hell and drag Brendon back down with it. "Look, I'm not you, I have the capacity to care about more the one fucking person at a time or the capacity to care about anyone at all, now come on, look, we'll make it work - I'll have time with you and then I'll have time with Patrick: look, we'll have nights alone and pizza and sex and- look, just let me be friends with Patrick without getting all bitchy about it?"

"Yeah whatever." Brendon sighed out, snorting a little at the fact that he 'could only care about one person at a time' as he came to reminder Sarah from the comic store with bright blue eyes and the kind of date, but just band practice thing, he had with her in ten minutes: she was proof that Brendon Urie cared and that Brendon Urie cared too much about entirely the wrong people.

Because really, he should have been thinking, not about her and how pretty she was, but just exactly what lie he was going to tell his boyfriend as he slipped off in a few minutes time. 

-

For like the first time in forever, Sarah's parents were out, and the band was actually practicing at her place, which gave Brendon the slight luxury of actually having the slightest clue as to where he was going and not stumbling over his words like a fucking walrus as he struggled to explain to some really fucking intimidating punk girl as to just what the hell he was doing on their doorstep.

But of course, he was still nervous like a motherfucker, because a few angry punk girls could definitely kick his ass, in fact, Sarah could probably kick his ass, and really, Brendon was nothing but absolutely blessed with the fact that she didn't want to.

Although, when inevitably she found out about his boyfriend, that just might change, and Brendon just might want to run like fucking hell.

Luckily for Brendon though, it was indeed Sarah that opened the door and in turn called him an idiot for being late, leaving Brendon to force himself to stop thinking about just how his boyfriend had been the one to make him late as he made his way inside.

"This is Brendon. I mentioned him to you, Lindsey." Sarah introduced him, and as Brendon's eyes found their way into a far too familiar pair across the room, he knew that he was absolutely nothing short of fucking fucked, as the girl playing guitar was none other than Jamia fucking Nestor.

And he wouldn't be all that surprised if Sarah had told them just a little bit more about him than his name, and he wouldn't be all that surprised if that just a little bit more happened to include the dates and the fact that they were literally fucking millimetres away from actually dating, and Brendon was getting worse at dodging that reality every fucking day.

"Lindsey, can you come help me with something in the kitchen?" Sarah trailed off and gesturing exaggeratedly at the girl on bass, who simply rolled her eyes and made her way to the kitchen as the girl on drums giggled like hell, and even Brendon could figure out that this was some 'what do you think of this boy?' girl code, and just like that Jamia was left eye to eye with Brendon, and he was just about fucked.

And then, as if god really decided that he hated Brendon Urie, Kitty had to ring her mum back, and went outside just to ensure that someone didn't shout something about hookers and cocaine down the phoneline, like last time.

Because just like that, Jamia and Brendon were alone.

"Any explanation at all, Urie? Or are you just being a real fucking asshole for the absolute hell of it?" She kept her voice low, but her tone lost no spite whatsoever, and Brendon came to realise that there was absolutely no joke in the fact that he should be scared of angry punk girls, because really, Jamia Nestor was making it more than evident that he absolutely should.

"It's fucking complicated and I didn't mean to fall for her - I'm fucking gay, I mean, I just- I can't fucking tell her that we just can't happen because I've got a boyfriend, I-"

"Brendon Urie, right now, you saying that you're fucking gay, is like me cheating on my girlfriend by going and sucking some random dudes dick and still calling myself a lesbian." Jamia made it rather clear that there was no way in hell that she was taking Brendon's white boy bullshit.

"I didn't fucking suck her dick- I mean, I... I just look, we went on like two dates, and like, Jamia, please, it's fucked up, okay, look, please, just keep this secret before I sort this out, I just- things are fucked with Ryan and I don't know who I love, okay."

Jamia simply fucking snorted at him with that. "Like this, you really don't fucking love either of them. You're just breaking two people's hearts at the same time. Why shouldn't I tell her? Why shouldn't I tell Ryan too? And then you'll have no one like you deserve for being such an asshole."

"Please, Jamia, I just need more time - I'll sort this all out by the end of the week, please. I'll do any favour - anything." And just like that, Brendon Urie painted the perfect picture of a pathetic asshole.

And really, Jamia Nestor loved nothing more than a good, old bit of emotional blackmail.

"Okay." She smirked, racking her brains in order to find something suitably amusing, but stumbling across something else entirely. "My mum thinks I'm a lesbian-"

"You are a lesbian." Brendon reminded her, because of course everyone needed that daily reminder of their homosexuality, well, actually, that was something Brendon could have really benefited from just a few weeks ago when he could just snap out of this mess.

"But, my mum isn't supposed to think that, so Brendon, be my fake boyfriend for like one day, break my heart and then leave me so heartbroken that I couldn't possibly date another boy again. Literally just like hold my hand a bit and come over for dinner and meet my mum and dad, and I'll do the rest."

"How is this whole heartbreak thing going to work? Jamia, I'm sure that this is beyond morally wrong."

"You're one to talk about morally wrong, aren't you, Urie?" She rolled her eyes, smirking like an asshole. "I'm just going to tell them that you're a cheating asshole, and at least then, I won't even have to lie."

And needless to say, Brendon couldn't quite keep calm and silent for the rest of band practice as he came to realise that doing a favour for Jamia Nestor was basically just the same as selling your soul to the devil.

-


	28. Thanks To Alicia Simmons And Ray's Dog

Alicia had been right, and Mikey hated to admit it, but he was getting better and perhaps the secret really was in looking at things differently and just talking to people, which of course, made his heart sink for Patrick, who, as he'd heard, didn't talk at all anymore.

It had started with Alicia, and with another late night by the canal where he said everything and anything and still not nothing, but it was better, and Mikey felt okay and he didn't hate himself for it: either he was making progress, recovering, or Alicia Simmons was hypnotising him somehow, and this time not with her ass.

Mikey even ended up apologising for everyday he thought of her as nothing more than an ass to stare at and a girl to seek after, because she was so much more, and she would always be so much more than Mikey, because Mikey Way was all fucking hate and ignorance, whereas she was love and understanding, yet still more than prepared to call you out on your shit if it was necessary.

But, of course, Alicia was nowhere near perfect, and neither was Mikey, and if he could rank hopes for himself in a similar range to his hopes for Alicia Simmons, then maybe, just maybe, he'd make it out of high school alive.

Ray and Mikey sat in silence at first: words were secondary after just accepting each other's presence, which had been in a terrible abundance recently, and it was taking a toll upon the both of them, and Ray couldn't help but think back to when everything was just simple and okay and all about Mikey Way trying to impress the girl that he'd end up cheating on.

It was really quite funny how things turned out.

Ray wondered if in a few months he'd find himself looking back on this: him and Mikey talking again after too long, and in consequence, he came to wonder just how he'd remember it, and in turn, just how things would end up and just what he'd become.

He hated not knowing, especially when smacked in the face with a reminder of his naivety. This time, Ray wanted things to go well, and he didn't want to be worried about Mikey doing just what Pete did, and he definitely didn't want to attend a funeral for the second time this month.

But it was just what he said now and just what he did in this very moment that would determine this whole future: his words quite literally would change everything, and to say that such a realisation overwhelmed Ray was nothing more than the world's biggest understatement.

But it was okay, and he was okay, and it was nothing more than a matter of inhale, exhale, and repeat, flashing a smile at Mikey and breaking the silence that seemed adamant upon lingering for far longer than necessary.

Ray stopped for a moment, following Mikey's gaze out onto the water of the canal: watching the reflections as the corners of his lips twitched with the wavering presence of a smile. 

It was okay, and he was going to make it okay, because phone calls that never got answered just weren't and never would be enough: he wasn't trying, not really, and that was exactly what was going to ruin Mikey.

Alicia had tried, Alicia always fucking tried, and perhaps that was the only reason Mikey Way was sat out here with Ray tonight and not in his bedroom with his favourite box of sharp objects.

"I love you." And the words tumbled out at once: with both too much and too little thought, and Mikey reacted before Ray could even really come accept just what had happened and just how the line between his words and his thoughts had chosen now to snap.

This was definitely something that would matter in the future, and still, Ray was hesitant to believe that those three fucking words had just slipped his lips because his head was spinning like hell as Mikey's lips parted into a simple 'o' shape: a response worth fucking nothing for the three most important words, well, in the mind of a romantic, and neither Ray nor Mikey would consider themselves as such.

"That wasn't intentional: I didn't mean to say that, sorry." Soon the apology caught up with Ray's heart: beating too fast for his head to cope with. But, of course, the denial never came, because Ray Toro wasn't a liar, and maybe, just maybe, that'd be exactly what would curse this memory, and just maybe that would be exactly what would cause Ray's heart to stop as he looked back upon this memory in a few months time.

And just like that, with Mikey's sombre gaze, he came to realise that this was a repeat of a disaster situation: this was Patrick and Pete all over again, and Ray wasn't going to let that happen - he was adamant this time, and that was for certain.

"Say something, Mikey. I'm sorry, I messed up, but please just say something." Ray's words: once strong and comforting, turned into nothing more than a beg and a plead. "Say something, make this okay, because I'm trying too hard to make you okay, and I'd accomplished nothing, I've only messed it up, and I-"

"This is Pete and Patrick all over again." Mikey sighed out: filling the silence with the fact that Ray could never quite bring himself to accept.

"I know." Ray choked out, soon to correct himself. "I didn't plan, I just- I... it came out the wrong way, in fact, it was never supposed to come out at all... I was never supposed to come out at all..." Mikey chuckled a little at that, meeting Ray's gaze and smiling, which left Ray at the point of insanity where he considered flinging himself into the sun to be a viable solution to this dilemma.

"You know what? I'm not Pete, and you're not Patrick, and I don't have to kill myself and you don't have to reserve yourself to silence, and this doesn't have to fail... maybe this can work, Ray. I don't know, I haven't even thought about this, but I feel like I owe this to someone, a situation that'll work. But, I’m scared, Ray, I’m so fucking scared – I need to think, but I care. I love you, Ray Toro.”

"Jesus, what did Alicia say to you? And do you think I can hire her to convince my parents that the porn they found under my bed was most definitely the dog's fault?"

Mikey just laughed aloud, leaning closer to his best friend. "Ray, your dog isn't and never will be a porn addict."

"Don't crush his dreams." Ray fake pouted, and the two smiled, because maybe, just maybe, everything was alright.

And maybe this was the end of something, but the start of something new, but most of all, a situation that ensured Alicia Simmons warranted a lifetime of allegiance in return.

-

Frank felt ignored, and not just by the narrative but by his boyfriend, which was mainly due to the fact that, unbeknownst to him, his boyfriend had fucked two other guys in the past week, and one of them being Frank's new found step-dad, and the other, well, that was just an awkward situation waiting to happen when they inevitably became acquainted.

But poor little Frank Iero, in his naivety and belief that he'd fucked up and Gerard was ignoring him on that kind of basis, curled up in his bedroom and lost himself in texting Jamia, who seem to be entirely over excited about something involving Brendon Urie.

Which was a first, to say the least.

And then before Frank knew it, his asshole of a best friend was calling him and she was screaming directly into his eardrums, which woke the teenager up, at the very least, but motivate him to sort his train wreck of a life out? No fucking chance.

"Basically, Brendon's going to be my fake boyfriend for my mum and I'm going to torture him as much as possible and it's literally going to be the best thing ever!" Needless to say, Jamia's moral compass was slightly off centre, she wasn't the antichrist per se, but you know, chaotic neutral.

"I thought I was your fake boyfriend." Frank groaned, falling back against the mattress and pouting, despite the fact that Jamia clearly wasn't going to appreciate such a gesture from over the phone, but then again, it was so ridiculously shit, that she really wasn't missing out on much: Frank was tired, okay. 

"Yeah, but now you have an actual boyfriend and I'm sure you'd be too busy fucking him to possibly fit dinner with my parents into your incredibly busy schedule." Frank sighed out, as he hated to admit that the truth lay within nothing more than the utter contrary.

"Brendon has a boyfriend too." Frank pointed out, avoiding the truth between him and Gee, mainly just because he still could and there was no way around the fact that Frank was a fucking idiot when it came to relationships.

"Yeah, well not for that much longer, really - he's cheating on Ryan." Jamia sighed out, catching Frank entirely by surprise.

"What the fuck? He's practically head over heels for Ryan? Seriously what the fuck?" Frank exclaimed, utterly horrified, but glad, because although him and Gee weren't exactly fantastic right now, he knew like hell that Gee would never cheat on him.

"With a girl as well. Sarah from my band, you know-"

"With the fucking ridiculous surname, like fuck me if I can even remember that, I wouldn't be surprised if she has to copy and paste her own last name." Frank exclaimed, still wide eyed as he finally began to throw it into perspective. "So, are you like going to tell Ryan about this or what? How did you even find out?"

"Sarah invited him as date to band practice, so yeah, I'm just going to blackmail and generally emotional manipulate him for a bit because I feel like fuckboys need to be exploited. Don't tell me that's morally wrong, Iero, he's fucking cheating on Ryan who like loves him until the end of time, and looks at him like they should get married." Jamia groaned and Frank just shook his head to himself, knowing that there was no stopping Jamia.

"I haven't spoken to Gee in like a week, Jamia. It's weird, I think I fucked up, I just... I don't know... nothing major happened..." Frank sighed out, the truth coming toppling out before he could stop himself and even consider getting the slightest grip upon reality.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Frank, why are everyone else having severe relationship issues every five seconds, Lindsey and I are and have been just fine since we got together, seriously." Jamia sighed out, edging dangerously close to the four wall, not that there's all that much left of it at this point.

"Jamia... just sort my shit out for me? Get Lindsey to talk to him for me or something... I-"

"Just fucking call him you piece of shit, Frank." She exhaled, overreacting just a like, maybe, but due to the fact that Frank was being nothing short of a fucking idiot, maybe it was called for.

"He hasn't answered my texts and I'm scared, Jamia, I-" But of course, Jamia wasn't taking any shit at all, ever, especially not from fuckboys with first world problems.

"Grow a pair and call him." And with that, Jamia hung up, leaving the seventeen year old staring at his contacts list and the one he'd avoided for the past week, and through no fault other than his own.

He sighed out, preparing himself for the worst, because Jamia was usually right, and she'd probably slap him if he didn't take her world class advice, and so for the fear of being bitchslapped by Jamia Nestor, Frank pressed the 'call' button on his Gee's contact.

And waited.

Dial tones for too long: forever, almost, until the dial tones stopped, because they did stop, like everything, like the whole fucking world, they stopped, and nothing scared Frank quite like that - the ending of everything.

The inevitable ending of him and Gee, because whether it be 'death do us part' or 'fuck you I hate your guts', it was inevitable nonetheless.

But the dial tones didn't end to reveal Gee's voice; it was just answer machines and empty hearts for Frank Iero.

But as he rolled out of bed with the intention of making his way across down in search of the motherfucker in a miniskirt that he'd endured the curse of falling in love with, he came to realise that eventually, either him or Gee was going to have to grow the balls to sort out this shit, and as Gee frequented miniskirts and far too much makeup, Frank wasn't entirely surprised to discover that the responsibility fell upon him.

-

But of course, not everything worked quite as well in reality as it did in theory, and going other to Gee's house was definitely pretty high up on that list, and largely due to the fact that the bungalow also belonged to none other than Bert McCracken.

Who was quite amusingly, technically Frank's step-dad right now.

And really, this could be a family visit and not just a rather ballsy attempt at stepping up to face reality on Frank's part.

But, of course, this was nothing more than the result of Jamia Nestor’s scarily effective blackmail methods, as Frank took absolutely no pleasure in lingering awkwardly at the front door to the bungalow as he forced himself to admit that there was most definitely a problem with the fact that he hadn’t spoken to his asshole of a boyfriend in just about a week now.

Needless to say, Frank didn’t particularly enjoy seeing none other than Bert McCracken, his ‘technical step-dad’ as the door to his boyfriend’s house finally opened after what seemed like hours of ringing the goddamn doorbell.

The phrase ‘technical step-dad’ being used due to the fact that Frank downright refused to admit that Bert McCracken was in anyway at all part of his family – it wasn’t like his mum’s relationships actually lasted any amount of time either.

“I presume you’re looking for that whore you call your boyfriend.” Bert broke the silence after he’d spent entirely too long glaring at the seventeen year old on his doorstep, which, needless to say, wasn’t exactly the most welcoming of gestures, but then again, Bert McCracken wasn’t exactly the most welcoming of people.

And although Frank had come to accept that, he could never quite figure out just how on earth Gee actually put up with this asshole, but then again, Frank put up with Mikey, and that was before he came to the realisation that being a homophobic asshole wasn’t exactly the best life choice for a flaming homosexual like himself.

“Yeah.” Frank sighed out, deciding it best to just ignoring the whole ‘whore’ comment, as it was with just about everything Bert said. But of course, the only time in which Frank could actually disregard Bert’s words completely just happened to be the only time that what Bert had to say would actually matter in the slightest.

“Well, he’s not home right now, but he should be coming back soon, pretty soon, I guess – I just texted him. You can wait inside if you want.” Bert stepped aside, awkwardly gesturing the seventeen year old into his home in the least pedophilic manner he could muster, and really, he just had to commend himself on just how much of a fantastic job he was doing.

“O-okay…” Frank stuttered out, forcing himself inside and into the living room with the intentions of just waiting it out in the silence of his own company: whether it be minutes or hours until Gee returned home.

But as Bert joined him, sitting down on the opposite sofa with a rather questionable gaze, Frank came to accept that there was no chance in hell that Bert was going to let him actually enjoy his own privacy, and had decided that glaring at him like he’d take pleasure in watching his body burn would make everyone’s lives one hundred percent better.

“You have absolutely no fucking idea, do you?” Bert let a chuckle slip between his lips as he pulled his stare up to meet Frank’s gaze: confused and more than a little uncomfortable. “I know you don’t, I know him: he’s being a fucking asshole about this and you’re just absolutely clueless. You don’t even know where he is or what he’s done.”

“Okay…” Frank sighed out, choosing to ignore Bert’s ramblings for the second time, in what was probably his second bad decision. But then a thought hit the teenager like a fucking bullet train, causing his attention to snap to the older man within instants. “Where is he?”

“Fuck me if I know.” Frank decided that he most certainly would not taken him up upon that offer. “I took him to a party three days ago and I haven’t seen him since.”

And it was just those fucking words that finally grabbed Frank’s composure by the wrists and held it above an open fire, burning it away until there was nothing left, and poor Frank Iero was left in Bert McCracken’s living room, significantly more uncomfortable than he was just a few moments prior.

“Fantastic.”

“I texted him though, so I know he’s alive at the very least.” Bert added with the kind of grin that Frank had the urge to punch right off his fucking face. “Should be home any moment right now, in fact.”

And as if on cue, the front door burst open: a bang resonating throughout the house as it swung back on its hinges and against the hallway as a slightly drunk, slightly high, slightly confused, slightly guilty, slightly fucked Gee Way made his way into the bungalow.

“Nice to see you, asshole. How’s it been? Shame you didn’t send me a postcard, huh?” Bert called through into the hallway, grabbing Gee’s attention, and leaving Frank to hold his breath as the twenty five year old made his way into the living room, gasping aloud as his eyes met with Frank’s.

“What the fuck are you doing with my boyfriend?” Gee exclaimed, eyes widened as he made exaggerated gestures at the two of them.

“What the fuck have you been doing the past three days? That’s what he was here for – how about you enlighten him?” Bert suggested, watching through narrowed eyes as the twenty five year old sat down beside his boyfriend, letting his head fall down into Frank’s lap as he grinned up at the teenager.

“Hi.” Gee exhaled, smiling like a fucking idiot, and really, whilst Gee was being that cute, he was having a fucking goddamn hard time when it came to actually being angry with him.

“Yeah, that’s what you are, high.” Frank sighed out, taking note of his boyfriend’s reddening eyes. “Where the hell have you been?” His tone was gentle yet concerned, and really, Bert couldn’t help but be disappointed at the obvious lack of conflict here; he’d only invited Frank in for his own amusement when arguments eventually broke out.

“At a party.” Gee let out a giggle: a stupid fucking giggle – the kind that ensured that Frank couldn’t even consider being pissed off at him.

“For three days?” Frank exclaimed, raising his eyebrows as he did so, meeting his boyfriend’s gaze with nothing other than downright disbelief.

“It was a good party.” Gee assured him, nodding his head enthusiastically.

“Sure… okay.” Frank sighed out: utterly clueless as to how to react, and to the point that he was looking up at Bert for help.

“For fuck’s sake, look, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Gee’s been cheating on you. Yeah, despite how fucking drunk you are, you should still always check just who you’re texting.” And with that, Bert got up, making his way to the door, only stopping to throw the final grenade into the rubble.

“I think you should do your boyfriend the honour of enlightening him as to just who ‘Dallon’ is, don’t you think, Gee?”

-

This was most definitely the worst situation Brendon Urie had ever found himself blackmailed into. Assuming for the majority of his life that he was in fact a gay dude, he never really prepared for an awkward meal with a girl's parents, and especially not when he was faking it and was only blackmailed into the situation, and as if that wasn't enough, he basically had to look like an asshole here for Jamia to be satisfied enough not to ruin his life, at least for the time being.

Associating with Jamia Nestor was the worst decision Brendon Urie had ever made.

Perhaps even worse than cheating on his boyfriend in the first place, but he reckoned it was just for the better if he didn't think about that right now, and really, as Jamia opened her front door and Brendon was thrown headfirst into what would be the worst dinner of his life, he didn't have a single fucking moment to ponder and mourn over the loss of his faithfulness.

He was an asshole: just about the whole world had come to accept that by now, and if Ryan had, well, then maybe he deserved this - a wake up call of some sort.

But he didn't - Brendon knew he didn't, and it fucking hurt, almost as much as the fact that he was lying to Ryan again now: he didn't want Brendon to do this 'favour' for Jamia, and of course, it wasn't like Brendon could exactly just explain as to why this certain favour was so important.

"You took your time." Jamia remarked, raising her eyebrows as she ushered Brendon inside, leaving the seventeen year old to consider the easiest way to kill himself with only the objects he had at hand in Jamia Nestor's living room, as she left him, presumably to go find her mum or something, and really, things could only get tragically worse.

And he just wished he had someone text throughout this experience for moral support, but unfortunately, this just wasn't the kind of situation that he could get away with explaining to either Ryan or Sarah, and besides the two of them, Brendon was just about fucked when it came to people that actually liked him.

"So mum..." Brendon was pulled from his thoughts with something close to a heart attack when Jamia returned with the woman Brendon assumed to be her mother. "This is Brendon." She gestured towards the awkward fuckboy in her living room, glaring as Brendon forced himself to smile and string together some sort of half-hearted yet vaguely acceptable introduction.

"Hi, uhh... nice to meet you and sh- stuff... I'm Brendon... h-hello." Yeah, this wasn't going well.

And to add to Brendon's self-confidence, Jamia mimed shooting herself from behind her mother, who had just about stopped dead in the middle of the living room, just glaring at Brendon like he was the scum of the fucking universe, and by Jamia's standards, he kind of was.

"Brendon." Jamia's mother finally spoke from behind her gritted teeth and painfully forced expression. "Nice to meet you too. Lunch is just about ready, I'll just finish serving up." And Brendon had to physically stop himself from letting out a sigh of relief as Mrs Nestor left for the kitchen, but of course, he still wasn't at all safe, as this left Jamia to torture and blackmail him as much as she damn well pleased.

Fuck Brendon's life basically.

"Come on then, 'boyfriend', don't fuck this up... well, not more than you're supposed to." Jamia unexpectedly grabbed him by the wrist, and rather forcefully too, dragging her fake boyfriend into the dining room, in which Brendon received the absolute honour of meeting Mr Nestor.

The copy of 'The Sun' newspaper he was reading said it all.

"This is your boyfriend, Jamia?" He looked up to meet Brendon's gaze, almost as if he was personally offended by his existence, and Brendon would have to say that the feeling was mutual.

"Yeah, this is Brendon." She sighed out, forcing back every little snide remark about how she was a raging homosexual, but this was worth it just to watch Brendon suffer. "Brendon, this is my dad."

"Hello." Brendon forced an awkward smile, and Mr Nestor sent him back a glare that roughly translated as 'speak to me again and I'll punch you in the face', and really, he wasn't taking any chances, especially ones that would lead him having to lie about just how he got a black eye to two different people, who would probably both punch him again once they realised it was bullshit, and then he'd have yet more bruises to explain.

Luckily, dinner was served and Brendon was sat awkwardly beside Jamia before Mr Nestor had the chance to punch him in the face, so Brendon would make it out of the house without a black eye, at the very least, by the looks of it.

"So, how did the two of you meet?" Mrs Nestor was soon ready to start with the world's worst 'meal with their parents' questions, which were only worsened by about one hundred percent as Brendon came to realise that Jamia was going to use these as an opportunity to make sure Brendon looked like the world's biggest fucking asshole.

"Oh, just at the skate park." She explained with a smile. The statement itself was relatively normal, but the meaning behind it was not.

"The one with all the drug crime?" Mr Nestor exclaimed, glaring in Brendon's direction, and immediately ignoring the fact that Jamia was far more involved with the drug scene than Brendon would ever be.

Nicotine, although in excess, was just enough for Brendon, whereas Jamia wouldn't be happy with just about everything she could ever possibly fathom getting her hands on.

"Yes." Jamia continued, smiling innocently yet with conviction.

"Oh." Mrs Nestor sighed out, turning back to her potatoes. 

"How do you feel about the homosexuals, Brendon?" Mr Nestor asked, making sure it sounded like some sort of Irish folk band.

And really, this was just the icing on the fucking cake.

"T-the homosexuals?" Brendon choked out, glancing at Jamia who couldn't help but bite back a smirk as she came to realise that her parents were the only straight people there at all.

"Yes, they're corrupting the youth. Do you associate with any homosexuals, Brendon?" Mr Nestor asked in a voice all too professional, and really, it was just moments before Jamia burst out in a fit of laughter.

"Uhh... no?"

"What about Ryan? He's a homosexual, isn't he, Brendon? Doesn't he have a boyfriend, or has that boyfriend cheated on him, Brendon?" Jamia spoke up, glaring at the seventeen year old.

"Who's Ryan?"

"Ryan's my-"

"Ryan was his boyfriend, you see." Jamia added, grinning on innocently like the world's biggest bitch.

"A homosexual? In my house?" Mr Nestor exclaimed, standing up, leaving Brendon to just about die on the spot.

And let's just say that Brendon Urie did not make it out of that house without a black eye, courtesy of Mr Nestor.

-

Ray's dog died.

Ray's fucking dog died.

Hit by a car on the streets of fucking suburbia at approximately eight am on a Saturday, and that was really not what the teenager wanted to wake up to on the only day he was actually allowed to enjoy: weekdays being consumed by the great fearsome monster that was high school, and Sundays devoted to church services and excessive praying.

But no, Ray's fucking dog just could not wait one more day, could he?

It had to be fucking Saturday, and the fucking car had to drive away before Ray could even blame him, because Ray needed that right now: he needed someone to blame, he needed the whole world to blame, just so he could feel okay.

It was selfish, but whatever - Ray was allowed to be selfish, his fucking dog just died.

The funeral was lacklustre: a bottom of the garden, black binbag ordeal that was over before it had even begun, and performed entirely by Mr Toro, who'd never liked the dog in the first place, and showed nothing but reluctance throughout the whole thing, and Ray fucking hated that.

So he blamed his dad, and he only glared when he tried to coax Ray back inside afterwards - Ray was adamant upon standing at the bottom of his garden, gaze fixated upon the little patch of upturned dirt and realising he'd never see that fucking dog again.

It was over all too soon, and it was over before Ray even knew it had happened: unfair, to say the least, and cruel to say it all. If God allowed this to happen, he was an asshole in Ray's opinion.

He spent a good twenty minutes just stood at the bottom of his garden, staring at the mediocre and generally inadequate burial that his dog had received, and generally being really pissed off with authority, because this wasn't fair.

His dog did not deserve to die.

It was a fucking cruel world, and before Ray even knew what was happening, he was barging out of the front gate and out into the street: still in sweatpants and a shirt from like two years ago, but whatever, his fucking dog died - if you hadn't quite caught onto that already.

It was the road just outside his house: suburban and quiet, and with houses on one side and a park on the other - not a dog park though. Don't talk about the dog park. 

And yet, the perfect picture of suburbia and happy little families living the luxury of upper middle class had only become a graveyard for Ray Toro's fucking dog. There was something deeply metaphorical and just deep about this, but Ray hadn't quite thought of it yet.

The teenager made his way across the road, with better luck than his dog, having made it across and to the park across the road without even a scratch, which really wasn't the case with the body in the backyard that was once a living breathing creature - something Ray had loved and something he still did.

Death was fucked up.

Death was unfair.

But it happened, and acceptance was almost impossible yet necessary, and that fucking sucked too.

Ray soon reached the playground, sitting down on a swing, and really just thinking himself lucky for the fact that no one else was here to bother him and fuck with his head.

It was like half eight on a Saturday - the rest of the whole fucking world were in bed, and really, the same should have gone for Ray, but things fucked up, and the whole world fell apart.

He felt like Mikey, and of course there was a lot of difference between a dog and a boyfriend, or at least you would hope so, but he still felt fucking empty, and he really wanted to punch someone, but there was no one to hand, let alone someone that wouldn't punch him back twice as hard.

"Ray?" The teenager jumped at the sound of his name, his eyes only widening as he watched Mikey crawl out from under the slide at the opposite end of the playground.

"Mikey, what the hell? What the ever-loving fuck are you doing?" Ray asked: one million thoughts whizzing around his head all at once, as his eyes practically popped out of their sockets as they followed Mikey to the swing beside Ray.

"I got drunk last night." Mikey sighed out, offering a simple explanation but one that Ray would accept nonetheless. "Ended up here, I guess." But there was a certain sadness to his voice, and perhaps it would have been something that Ray would have picked up on if he wasn't already far too preoccupied with his dog to even consider the existence of another human being.

"My dog died." Ray spoke aloud, and somehow, just somehow, that seemed to make it so much worse, so much more real, more real than the funeral had done: it was pathetic and fake, almost like this was all pretend, and Ray even began to wonder whether his dog's body was actually in the binbag or whether his dad had thrown it straight into the skip down the road.

"That sucks." Mikey sighed out, unsure as to just what he could say: Ray fucking loved his dog.

"Yeah. He got hit by a car like half a fucking hour ago and it doesn't feel real. My dad buried him in the garden but it doesn't feel enough - it feels shitty and it feels fake and I really want to punch someone in the face, and I fucking, I fucking hate this."

"Death does that: sort of numbs everything out - nothing feels at all real in comparison, and fuck, it's fucked up, Ray, but don't get as fucked up as I am. I don't want that for you: you're amazing and you don't deserve to be sad. We could go and spend today together if it makes you feel better, we could like-"

"I don't care, Mikey. It's just- I feel nothing, and I don't want to move, I just want to punch someone, I just want to feel something. It's just empty and-"

Mikey stood up, meeting Ray's gaze with a raise of an eyebrow, gesturing for Ray to get up too: he did without question.

"Punch me."

Mikey was far too calm and far too relaxed: he didn't care, but he did, and Ray's head was spinning at a thousand miles an hour as he came to accept the fact that he just couldn't punch Mikey Way, no matter if he wanted to or not.

"No." He shook his head: adamant in refusal.

"Why?"

"Doesn't make it better by hurting you." Ray shrugged it off, his gaze hitting the floor.

"I thought you wanted to feel something."

"I do." Ray sighed out, shaking his head. "But just not like that."

And then, before either boy knew what was happening, Mikey was kissing him, and the fucked up suburbia around them seemed to fade out into nothing with the simple connection of their lips.

It was so simple, and yet so complicated, but the moment was now: eight forty five on a Saturday morning, Ray's dog was dead, and Mikey Way was kissing Ray Toro, and complications could wait. 

-


	29. I'm Not Sorry At All

Brendon was supposed to hate lying.

Brendon was supposed to utterly despise liars with every ounce of his being.

And most of all, Brendon wasn't supposed to be a hypocrite.

But he was.

And there just far too little he could do about that by this point: he'd already tripped and fallen and the bottom of the pit was just a fate he'd have to accept, but for now, for now until Ryan found out, it was just free-fall, and maybe that was even the worst part.

He was on edge, always, and especially in the presence of anyone that mattered in the slightest, and Jamia's little discovery hadn't helped his situation in the slightest, and surely the 'good' thing to do would be just confessing to both Ryan and Sarah, and letting them decide whether they should forgive him or not.

But as he soon discovered, Brendon Urie was not a 'good' person - of course what made a good person was always susceptible to opinion, but cheating on your boyfriend didn't make the list just about any way you looked at it.

And it was just this aforementioned discovery that led Brendon to find himself on Ryan Ross' doorstep, once again: hair messy in the back, and smelling just a little too much like girl - a certain girl, who worked at the comic store and played in an all girl punk band with Jamia fucking Nestor.

Ryan had been far too caught up in Patrick to notice, and that was how it always was and would be, and for once, just maybe, that worked for Brendon, and amidst this mess, maybe, just if he skewed his morals enough, Brendon was allowed to make this work for him.

Either that or he was becoming increasingly accustomed and almost scarily comfortable with the idea of lying - to his boyfriend, his girlfriend, his friends, himself, and perhaps even the whole damn world.

"You took your time." Ryan noted, opening the door after the doorbell had been ringing for a good thirty seconds, but whatever, Brendon was far too guilt ridden to be all that bothered.

Brendon shrugged it off, swallowing the truth, as he really doubted 'yeah, I was fucking this girl - my girlfriend' would have gone down all that well. "Bus was late."

"You don't even catch the bus. You hate buses."

Okay, maybe the lying thing wasn't working out quite as well as planned.

"Maybe I changed my mind - I don't have to love or hate something for the entirety of my life." Brendon decided that a vague, yet philosophical response was the best way to counter this one - it meant nothing, but Ryan would spend just long enough looking into it to ensure that he forgot about the fact that Brendon had even lied to him in the first place.

Genius.

Entirely morally fucked up.

But, still, genius.

And really the above could be applied to Brendon's relationship with Sarah: twice the fucking, and two entirely different styles - genius. Of course, he didn't exactly like this situation, and he hadn't found himself stuck in it on account of his sexdrive, alone: hormones, confusion, and sexuality were all much to blame.

It was just the reality of how serious things were getting that had Brendon's stomach doing backflips as he made his way into Ryan's bedroom: they were alone - Ryan had even thought to get Patrick out of the way for a few hours on account of Brendon, and fuck.

It was more than flirting at this point, Brendon and Sarah, so much more.

And that was entirely the fault of vodka shots and that night when Sarah's parents were out of town for like the first time in forever, and she even neglected to tell the band for practice space, just for Brendon. Just so she could kiss Brendon, and tell him how she felt - that had been the plan at least, but when excessive amounts of alcohol suddenly became involved, things went just a little further than that.

They fucked: twice that day.

And once this morning while her parents went to volunteer at church for a few hours, and for the first time in her life, Sarah had gotten out of it: something about exams.

That didn't matter now though - not at all. All that matter was Ryan Ross and his bedroom and that fucking grin and the guilt in Brendon's stomach that was going to explode in the form of vomit at some point soon: verbal, or... otherwise.

"You going to stand there forever, Urie?" Ryan asked, grinning up at his boyfriend, and god, he looked cute: he looked innocent, he looked happy, and he looked like that the possibility of his boyfriend cheating on him had never even occurred to him, not even once.

And Brendon Urie felt like dying.

"Might do." Brendon shrugged it off with a smirk, but before he knew what was happening, Ryan had him pinned up against his bedroom wall, and his mouth was suddenly far too preoccupied for him to even consider complicating this further.

Which was good, somehow. If you were an extremely annoying positive thinker at the very least, and maybe that was just something that Brendon had to be if he wanted to get out of this hell he'd created for himself alive.

"I missed this." Ryan pulled away after far too long: his words whispered and yet still all too loud and all too real against Brendon's cheek. "I missed you, Brendon. I'm sorry, but I'm sure you're tired of apologies that will never mean enough - I've been a shitty boyfriend and I love you."

And silence as Brendon's heart stopped and his lying abilities fell to shit at entirely the worst opportunity.

"You too." It came out as nothing more than a prolonged pathetic stutter, but Ryan was just so eager to hear a positive response he wrote it off as nerves, leaving the gaping pit of guilt at the bottom of Brendon's stomach to continue to grow.

"Let's fuck." Ryan grinned, pressing his lips to Brendon's again: far more forcefully this time - he meant it, and Brendon was left with very little choice, not that he really wanted to refuse, like come on, fucking Ryan Ross.

Guilt was a fucking bitch though, but a bitch easy silenced with Ryan's lips upon his and just how the guilty ache in the bottom of his stomach was soon replaced by an ache in his dick - both aches fault of Ryan Ross: the former utterly unknown to him, but by the way he was kissing Brendon's neck, the seventeen year old was pretty confident he was well aware of the latter.

And by just how forcefully he was kissing and biting Brendon's neck, the teenager was more than painfully aware of the fact that he was going to have to wear a damn lot of scarves this week if he didn't want to get slapped in this face by just about everyone he knew.

-

"Stop calling me."

"F-"

"Stop calling me."

He hung the phone up.

Frank was done: fucking done with it all beyond belief, and still, Gee didn't ever quite seem to get that, and perhaps, he should have congratulated the twenty five year old upon his persistence at the very least, but really, Frank wanted nothing more than to ensure the ex-boyfriend was out of his life completely.

And as much as his heart screamed out and missed him, his head shut it up completely, rendering his heart cold, dead, and barely beating, but maybe it was better this way - in the long term, at the very least.

If he never had to see Gee again, then that most definitely ensured that he'd never cross paths with Bert McCracken again either, who, both thankfully and unsurprisingly, was no longer his step-dad: it had lasted a week at most and now his mum was flirting with the new guy at the Chinese takeaway down the road.

It didn't matter, though, not really.

Or at the very least, Frank just had to master the art of telling himself so.

Frank was prepared to put up with the younger brother being his best friend who he kind of hated most of the time, the homophobic parents, the lying, the secrets - everything and anything, just not this.

No one should have to put up with this, and maybe, just maybe, he was being harsh: denying Gee all contact from now on, and just after one fuck up.

But really, it was one massive fuck up.

And that was enough in Frank's mind: he was better than this, and he was better than Gee Way, and there'd be other boyfriends in the future, and he just had to hope that they wouldn't go and fuck the whole fucking town and some fucking party where there was entirely too much cocaine.

Frank wanted to say that he hated Gee, like really despised every ounce of his existence: everything he is, everything he ever was, and everything he will be. But he couldn't, not really, so maybe, just maybe, he'd have to settle with extremely strong dislike.

He was adamant that Gee was beginning to hate him at this point anyway, so what did it matter at all? It mattered too much, and it always would, because Gee always had.

Fuck, Frank needed a smoke and someone to talk to: anyone, just a manner in which to rid his head of this mess.

He hadn't seen Ray and Mikey in a few days, but then again, no one had, and to the point that Frank would have been starting to get a little suspicious, if Pete hadn't died, of course: he doubted that Mikey wouldn't even consider moving on for months now.

Jamia, who just happened to be the best at these kinds of things, well in her own special way, at the very least, had band practice, like every fucking second, and Frank was seriously beginning to wonder just how much of this 'band practice' she actually spent in bed with Lindsey, whilst her best friend was grieving over the asshole who'd cheated on him with some guy he doubted he'd ever even fucking know.

Maybe that was for the best though. It'd stop him comparing his every single fucking action to this 'Dallon' asshole, and it would stop him consuming himself with yet more hatred, but still, it didn't stop him thinking about just what had happened with Gee and Dallon, and whether this was really just a one time thing, or as Frank severely suspected, something else entirely.

And Frank almost felt jealous that Bert McCracken was making yelling at and generally intimidating someone else, as he refused to let him go see his boyfriend for the sake of his own peace and quiet.

And then insanity really hit as Frank began to wonder if he'd even miss Bert McCracken - god, this was fucked up.

He shoved his lighter into the pocket of his hoodie and made his way out of the house: heading nowhere in particular, yet in search of a certain much needed clarity: surely, he could just call someone, even if none of the others were that close to him at all, but it didn't feel right.

He didn't want shitty irrelevant advice that made him want to shove his face through a wall.

Pete Wentz had been the only guy for such a job, and Jesus fucking Christ, Pete did not deserve to die.

Frank hadn't been quite as affected by Pete's death as Patrick and Mikey were, but he most certainly wasn't as apathetic towards the matter as Brendon was, and he certainly wasn’t the cheater, like Brendon was.

Frank kind of just wanted to tell Ryan, because fuck, he hated nothing like he hated cheating right now, even if it was far from his business, and even if he wasn't supposed to know, but, fuck, he couldn't, because he never wanted to see Ryan as lost as he was right now.

Frank had been with Gee for more than half a year now, and fuck, to hell if he wasn't in love with the guy, and to hell if he wouldn't have goddamn married the guy if he'd asked, but fuck: he felt lied to, he felt like his whole world had been tipped upside down - he felt wrong, and he felt nothing and everything at the same time, and most of all, he really fucking needed a cigarette.

And fuck, he hated the way his subconscious almost seemed to lead his feet down to Gee's house, because even now, he was at the back of Frank's mind, always.

This was fucked.

And he couldn't even begin to imagine what it had been like for Mikey when he'd lost Pete completely.

Fuck.

Everything was so goddamn fucked, and things were just supposed to get better with time, weren't they, but this time, everything only seemed to get worse - especially Pete's death, and the crater it had left in everyone's lives, because it was there, for everyone, despite what you might think, because although Patrick may be stuck in the center, that wasn't to say that Brendon was perched on the edge.

Maybe Frank needed more than a cigarette, and maybe, just maybe, the one person who could make this better was the one person he couldn't have.

And maybe he should have valued those five seconds of phone call more than he did, because, fuck, Frank couldn't do this: no matter what he told himself, he really couldn't.

He needed someone to fuck to make this all go away, he needed someone, he needed a kiss, he needed a hug, he just needed something, anything.

And it seemed that God had taken pity upon the seventeen year with broken glass shards in the place of his heart, in the form of none other than Bob Bryar sat upon a bench in the park.

"Frankieee? What can I do for you? You can have weed for free, you know, because you're like my best friend-"

"I'll have everything."

-

Maybe Ray and Mikey were okay, maybe they really were, and maybe Mikey was okay now, but there was no chance in all of hell that Mikey Way would ever get over Pete Wentz, and it was truly tragic, with his only reconciliation being that at least he was doing better than Patrick.

Patrick didn't even speak anymore, and the only people he even agreed to silently contact were Ryan and Joe: things were not looking good for Patrick Stump at all, and it was even his birthday in a few days time, and really, grieving and mourning was no way in which to spend your seventeenth birthday.

In fact, a state of heartbreak was no state in which anyone should live in.

So maybe, just maybe, it was okay that Mikey was pretending now: pretending that he was over it and totally okay - he was good at pretending, at the very least.

He didn't want to end up like Patrick: helpless and alone, and dear god, even less did he want to imagine what it was actually like in the sixteen year old's head, and dear god, he most certainly did not want to think about the fact that Pete never got to see his best friend turn seventeen, and this would Patrick's first party without Pete in far too long.

Patrick didn't tend to go to parties, but when it was his birthday, Pete made sure that the guy had the best damn birthday ever, and even if Mikey and Patrick weren't exactly the best of friends, he just couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy.

"Mikey, are you okay?" Ray noticed Mikey's silence within seconds, and there was no way around the fact that they'd grown almost insanely close over the course of the past few days, and really, there hadn't been a day that Mikey hadn't spent out in Ray Toro's garden with his kind of boyfriend.

Mikey wasn't sure if he could quite manage a 'full on boyfriend' right now, but having Ray there to tell him he was cute, and like kiss him sometimes, just made everything so much more bearable: Pete was dead anyway, he had to move on eventually.

"Not really." Mikey couldn't help but admit the truth: there was no point to lying anyway - Ray knew it instantly, and maybe, Alicia was right, like talking about things seemed to actually work quite well. "I keep thinking about Pete, and then Patrick, and his birthday coming up, and he's not going to be okay without Pete there, and I just can't stop obsessing over how he died and how different things would be if he hadn't... maybe things would actually be okay if he hadn't, because fuck, everything's just so fucked up now... everyone's just so sad."

"Look, Ryan assures the whole goddamn world that this party is going to be the best thing in the whole world, so, look, everyone's going to have a great time, and he's got alcohol and food, and good music, and they're hosting it at Ryan's because his parents always seem to be off on some random business trip - it's going to be great, Mikey, everyone's going to love it, especially Patrick."

"But none of that is going to matter to him in the slightest because Pete isn't there. To him, Pete was the most important thing in the whole world, and really, he still is, so nothing is at all significant in comparison." Mikey sighed out, pulling his knees up to his chest and catching Ray's gaze.

"Is it still like that for you?" Ray tread nervously with his words, holding Mikey's gaze just as carefully as if he genuinely feared it breaking.

"No, used to be up until recently, though." Mikey leaned his head onto Ray's shoulder. "You're the most important person now."

"Surely you should be the most important person to yourself." Ray added, linking hands with Mikey, and feeling like flying, because maybe, even if it was just at the back of his mind, he'd been thinking about this for far too long now. Ray wasn't exactly the romantic type though; he didn't even really know what type he was, he just knew that Mikey Way was most certainly his type.

"I'm trying to be cute, okay, shut up." Mikey sighed out, blushing just a little, and Ray couldn't help but grin, his cheeks burning, but like this, he felt alive, he felt on fire, not dying, but like fireworks.

"You're always cute." Ray grinned, and he meant it like he'd never meant anything before, and still, of course, Mikey was weary to believe it.

"Hmmm..."

"You are." Ray insisted this time, and it only took a few seconds for Mikey to give in; he wasn't a pushover, but with Ray, just maybe, it was an entirely different story.

Ray was by no means his 'second Pete' or a quick fix, in fact, no one could ever be, Pete was Mikey's only Pete, but maybe Ray would even be better - Mikey doubted it, of course: Pete and he were all young teenage love - chemicals and hormones and all at once, all or nothing, but they'd had everything and now Mikey was left with nothing.

"I want to make sure that Patrick's okay, though, because, I mean, god, he doesn't speak at all anymore, not that he was ever the loudest person in the first place, but being entirely mute is so fucking different from just being shy." Mikey sighed out, hating to steer the conversation back in this direction, but he almost felt that he was obliged to care about Patrick, for Pete's sake anyway.

"He's got Ryan, he's going to be okay, I promise: Ryan acts like his mother - no one cares more about Patrick than Ryan does - it's going to be fine, and really, Ryan would rather die than have this party be any less great than any one organised by Pete." And it was like Ray had an answer for everything, and maybe that was just what Mikey needed right now: someone to tell him that everything was okay.

"But Ryan will never be Pete."

"That's okay, though, Patrick doesn't need Pete, he just needs someone who cares about him, he'll be okay with time, I promise you, Mikey Way."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

And then, before either of the two, really quite knew what was going on, their lips were on each other's again, and maybe, it was just the few seconds, where every little bit of Mikey was so drowned out with Ray that he ever got to forget about Pete and how much it hurt.

Ray made it better, and Mikey needed that: he needed him.

-

And Ray most certainly wasn't wrong about Ryan, like seriously the guy needed some credit for just how enthusiastically he managed to usher his parents out of the house for a good few days to go on some business trip that they didn't even really have, like fucking hell, that was lying and manipulation worthy of Jamia Nestor, and Ryan would do this all for Patrick Stump.

If the guy wasn't loyal to Brendon with everything he had, then a situation such as that couldn't help but look just a little suspicious. But, of course, unlike his boyfriend, Ryan Ross was actually able to commit to one relationship and avoid breaking someone's heart completely, because he didn't have to make a severe effort not to be an asshole, again unlike his boyfriend.

Patrick wandered into Ryan's kitchen with a particularly solemn look upon his face, having being invited over just a few hours before the party was due to start, and really, Ryan looked as if he'd been preparing for at least a few days solid now.

Ray wasn't wrong about him outdoing Pete either, of course, Patrick would never be able to see it like that, but like this, there was a good chance that he may even be able to just consider actually enjoying the party, which would be a success in Ryan's head.

"It's your birthday, come on, Patrick, a smile?" Ryan sighed out, leaning against the kitchen counter and gesturing for Patrick to come over. "Look, you're going to love it - trust me. I invited everyone you wanted, and you invited that 'Joe' guy, didn't you?" Patrick nodded. "Who even is he? Is he your old friend or something?" Patrick only shrugged.

"You're not replacing me, are you? I'm your best friend, come on, Patrick - we all know that." Ryan grinned, laughing it off, because there was nothing that the seventeen year old knew like the fact that he just wanted to be someone's one and only best friend - he wanted to matter to someone more than anyone else did, and surely that was how it was supposed to be with Brendon, but sure enough that Brendon was his boyfriend and that Brendon loved him, but Brendon always had other people, and Ryan just couldn't shake the feeling that he was second best.

Of course, such a feeling had greater roots than he'd ever care to imagine, but perhaps it was for the best if he was unaware of them, at least for the time being: him having a mental breakdown right now wouldn't exactly bode well for Patrick's party, considering as he was kind of the backbone of the whole thing.

Patrick smiled at Ryan in response, shaking his head at his best friend, because, no Ryan would never even come close to Pete, but he was the best thing Patrick had right now, but still not Pete.

But Patrick was okay, at least now, for the most part, and maybe all his friends here having a good time was just what he needed.

Ryan Ross didn't tend to be wrong, after all.

"Hey, Patrick, I even got you a fucking live band to play at your party - that's beyond cool, don't dare tell me otherwise." Patrick only stared at Ryan with a look that just about conveyed 'how the ever-loving fuck did you manage that?'. "I asked around, turns out Jamia Nestor's in a pretty kickass girl punk band, like they're actually really good as well. It's going to be great, I promise. So they're going to get here just a little earlier to set up and shit and then Brendon's got a shit ton of alcohol, so it's going to be great, promise."

But of course, Ryan had no idea just how fucking disastrous it was going to be when him, Brendon, and Sarah were all in the same room.

-

A few hours later, people were starting to arrive, and just a few more people than planned had turned up, but they were mainly friends of friends - it was Patrick Stump's birthday party, not a fucking college rager, after all, but still, free alcohol and good music.

Disaster in the form of Brendon's boyfriend and girlfriend meeting had been avoided so far: Brendon and Ryan were preoccupied with being introduced to Joe, Andy, Spencer, and Dallon by Patrick, and Sarah was well, in the band, and due to certain technical difficulties, they hadn't even started playing yet, so Ryan's Spotify playlist was connected to the speakers somewhere in the house until they had a better alternative.

And of course, just like that, Brendon wasn't even aware that they had a live band, let alone that this live band included Sarah Orzwechski, and nothing short of a disaster waiting to happen.

Brendon soon grew tired of Ryan ignoring him in favour of five other people, like seriously that was just some shit that his ego couldn't cope with, and ended up disappearing off into the house, in search of someone else he vaguely liked, and stumbled across a seriously high Frank Iero in the process.

"Shit, dude, are you okay?" Brendon found himself grabbing Frank by the hand to practically stop him falling over right then and there.

"Just a bit- bit... drugs... lots of them." Frank grinned almost over-enthusiastically at Brendon, leaving the taller of the two to wonder just where Jamia was right now, because dear god, if anyone knew anything when it came to dealing with Frank Iero at the worst of times, it was Jamia Nestor.

"Yeah, perhaps not the best idea, was it?" Brendon sighed out, sitting Frank down on the sofa beside him, and deciding that this would be the best idea until like Jamia or Mikey or someone more experienced in dealing with Frank turned up.

Rather suspiciously both Mikey and Ray were late, and it surely was an absolute mystery as to just what they could possibly be doing right now.

"Seemed like a fucking fantastic idea at the time." Frank's words were slurred and he ended up curling into Brendon's side, and really, Brendon almost felt too awkward to do anything about it.

"Hmm... yeah, I do that a lot - fuck up." Brendon sighed out, thinking about Ryan and Sarah for the thousandth time today, and still utterly unaware that Sarah was in the next room trying to get the goddamn speakers to work.

"Yeah, I know." Frank sighed out, resting his head in Brendon's lap in a manner that he only wasn't being punched in the face for because he was probably more stoned than Bob Bryar right now, and well, Brendon was feeling rather ignored by Ryan right now, and he was an angsty little bitchy fuckboy, as he had proved many times before.

"What?" Brendon exclaimed, laughing it off a little.

"You thought that about cheating on Ryan with Sarah, but now Jamia is blackmailing and manipulating you until you die, you've realised that you probably shouldn't have done that, but it's fine because you're an asshole, and Ryan might not forgive you, but he is really in love with you so he probably should after a few weeks. Sarah, though, she will slap you, so I'd probably invest in some facial armour before that happens, if I were you. Like a really strong beard or something."

And even despite the utter ridiculousness of Frank's words, Brendon certainly wasn't laughing anymore.

Jamia Nestor had made sure of that, and just like this, Brendon made sure to dig his own grave before interacting with her ever again.

-

Mikey and Ray finally arrived at a grand total of thirty seven minutes late, both with messed up hair and blushes whenever they happened to catch one another's gaze, and as to just what had ensured that they were thirty seven minutes late, it was more than blatantly obvious, to say the least.

"Mikey- why the hell are you so late- doesn't matter, I-" Ryan practically ambushed Mikey at the door, leaving Ray to slip off elsewhere, effectively drawing far less attention to the fact that they arrived late together, because for the most part, his friends weren't that stupid.

"Uhh..." Mikey trailed off, blushing a little as he met Ryan's gaze: utterly unsure as to what was the best way to cover the fact that he'd just fucked Ray Toro was.

"Has Frank happened to mention anything to you about why he might be having close to a mental breakdown right now, because, you're his best friend, right? Me and Brendon are fucking clueless as to how to deal with him, he's like completely fucked... he's like curled up in Brendon's lap mumbling something about beards...?" Ryan looked up hopefully at Mikey: unaware that he had been far too busy fucking Ray Toro to even consider that there could possibly be anything wrong with Frank.

"I-I... I don't know? Honestly, get Jamia?" Mikey suggested, awkwardly suggesting just about any option that didn't involve his help, because well, okay, Frank was his friend, but still he didn't want to deal with him having an emotional breakdown as the first thing he did when he arrived at a fucking party, like, free alcohol. Mikey had priorities.

"Jamia's playing in the band, they've just about set up - technical difficulties, yeah, but she doesn't get a break for like twenty minutes." Ryan sighed out, sensing Mikey's reluctance and ending up gesturing Mikey towards the sofa where Frank lay muttering to himself about beards, and far too much about a certain singer in a certain band here tonight.

"Frank?" Mikey's eyes widened at the sight of the guy, because despite the fact that Ryan had indeed use the term 'mental breakdown', he still didn't quite expect this: the guy was sobbing in Brendon's lap whilst shaking almost dangerously. "What the fuck did you take?"

"We don't know. All he said was 'a lot of drugs', which, of course, is brilliantly helpful." Brendon rolled his eyes a little, and Mikey had to force back any form of negative comment in his direction, because, hell, Frank was still his best friend, and in Mikey's eyes, Brendon Urie was an asshole.

"Why, Frank, why? Come on, I know you smoke and shit, but like, still, this isn't you." Mikey froze for a moment, thinking of Pete and the drugs he'd taken and how that had driven him to end it all, and fuck, Mikey knew that he wasn't going to leave Frank alone until he was okay from that moment on.

He couldn't lose anyone else.

"D-Doesn't matter-r..." Frank stuttered out, burying his head back into Brendon's side, and leaving Ryan to bite back a scowl, and Brendon, in turn, to bite back a smirk, and well, Mikey was just stood there trying not to punch someone.

"Ryan?" The four jumped at the sound of another voice. "Look, this shit isn't going to work - we can't play - you're just going to have to play music, you could play our CD if you really want, but it's not going to fucking work."

And in what world be the worst moment of Brendon's life, he met Jamia's eyes, and came to the rather swift conclusion that if she wasn't just playing in the band by herself, and of course, this was the same band that Sarah was in, and this was Ryan Ross' house, and this was the end of Brendon Urie's life.

And Frank Iero was laughing.

Like a distraught maniac, but laughing nonetheless.

"For fuck's sake, Frank- what the fuck is wrong with him?" Jamia pushed Ryan aside, pulling the seventeen year old up out of Brendon's lap and onto his feet.

"We don't know: he's taken lots of drugs, but that's all we've gotten out of him." Ryan repeated for what felt like the seven millionth time.

"And you're just sat here 'interviewing' him? For fuck's sake- you're fucking idiots. He needs to go throw the fuck up before he dies or something, yeah? Ever thought that taking every drug under the sun in the space of a few hours is perhaps a bad idea?" Jamia grabbed Frank by the hand, eventually having him leaning onto her shoulder as he came to the conclusion that walking to the nearest sink or toilet was a bad idea.

"I'm sorry that I'm not the expert on drugs-" Ryan protested, soon stopping himself as he came to realise that, well, this was Jamia Nestor, and that was just something you shouldn't say to a girl who'd take the utmost pleasure in slapping you across the face, and then ruining your life. "We just wanted to know why."

"Isn't it fucking obvious? Wow, has he not even told anyone- fucking hell, you're an idiot too, got that Iero?" She rolled her eyes, turning to Mikey. "Your brother cheated on him. You perhaps want to call the asshole and ask him just what the fuck's going on, because Frank certainly hasn't got the guts."

"What the fuck..." Mikey trailed off, eyes opened wide as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket.

Jamia muttered a particularly sarcastic remark under her breath before somehow managing to get Frank to the kitchen sink.

"That wasn't a good idea, you know that?" Jamia sighed out, her tone far softer when she was just with Frank, although it didn't exactly matter as it was highly unlikely that he was even conscious enough to hear her at this point, let alone assess the tone of her voice to make an educated judgement regarding her feelings towards him.

"Mhmm..." Was the extremely educated response she got from Frank, but then again, she wasn't exactly expecting all that much in the first place.

"Hey, kid, you finished puking your guts out yet?" Jamia snapped, noticing a guy practically leaned over the kitchen sink, which served as an inconvenience, to say the least.

The guy, Dallon, turned in surprise, blushing like hell, and stepping aside almost rigidly like a deer in the headlights. Jamia, however, paid him little to no attention, simply shoving Frank up against the kitchen sink.

"Throw up, come on." She slapped him across the face. "Fuck's sake-"

"If you put two fingers down your throat, you throw up instantly." Dallon added, almost tentatively, staring at the two of them like he was frozen on the spot.

"What are you, fucking bulimic Barbie?" Jamia wasn't in the best of moods tonight, to say the least, and Dallon hadn't exactly made the best impression by throwing up in the sink when Frank needed to.

"It works." He sighed out, ignoring her comment, and finding himself in no place to deny such a thing.

"Frank, for fuck's sake- do you want to die? No- the answer is no. Shove your fucking fingers down your throat or I will introduce your mum to that dude from the post office who's in a cult, you know, the one with the zigzag fringe?"

And the thought of Peter from the post office and his zigzag fringe and cult habits, which may have possibility involved goat sacrifice at some point in his life was enough to have Frank puking his guts into Ryan's kitchen sink, and really, Jamia was just glad that it wasn't her job to clean that shit up.

"You good?" She forced a smile, pushing Dallon aside, and forcing Frank to look at her.

He flashed her an idiotic grin. "Fucking f-f-fantastic."

"Sit down, I'll get you some water." Jamia forced him up onto the kitchen counter as she grabbed a cup and went off to find a sink that someone hadn't puked in.

"What I can't figure out is whether she's your girlfriend or your mother." Dallon, who somehow felt obliged to still stay there, added what was probably the most awkward comment with which to fill the silence with.

"I'm gay, and I already have a mum." Frank answered, just a little too fucked up to get the joke. "Don't be a homophone or I will get Ryan motherfucking Ross to kick your butt out of this party, Jamia's like a big big lesbian as well so she'll probably punch you too."

"Oh... u-uhh... I'm g-gay too..." He breathed out, and god, fuck, he should have just ensured Frank that he wasn't an asshole instead of just fucking coming out to a guy he'd only just met.

"You don't sound very convinced." Frank pointed out, smirking a little, almost like he was proud of himself for such a deduction.

"Sexuality's a hard thing to figure out, man." Dallon trailed off, expecting a heartfelt, philosophical and compelling answer from Frank.

But in turn, all he got was, "ha, hard," followed by a smirk and then a giggle, and 'luckily' Jamia chose that moment to return, forcing the glass of water into Frank's hands.

"Fucking drink it, asshole." She snapped at him, grinning just a little, watching him to ensure he drank just a little before turning away and noticing that for some godforsaken reason, Dallon Weekes was still here.

"Why are you still here? Who the hell even are you?" Jamia asked the questions everyone wanted the answers to.

"I'm Dallon, Dallon Weekes- I- I- I-... I'm here..." Dallon was still here because he had an uncontrollable urge to throw up again and he was just waiting it out until Jamia and Frank moved along so he could do so, but of course, he didn't say that.

"Dallon fucking Weekes, god, fuck- fuck you and your fucking stupid name, fuck-" And just like that, Jamia slapped Dallon Weekes across the face.

"Why did you do that?" Frank asked, wide eyed, and Dallon probably mumbled something to that effect too, but he was far too shocked to really get anything more than a mumble out.

"Dallon Weekes. Frank, how fucking high are you? This is the guy that fucked Gee, remember, you were bitching to me about how fucking stupid his name was like yesterday."

And just like that, Dallon's world fell apart.

And Frank Iero started crying, and he kind of wanted to cry into Brendon's arm a bit more, because Brendon Urie had a comfy fucking arm.

"I'm- I'm sorry, I-" Dallon didn't know what the hell he was supposed to do from here, and 'I'm sorry' really just didn't seem to quite cover it.

"Go die in a fucking hole." Jamia wasn't exactly the most tolerant of people, to say the least, but the commotion between them soon meant next to nothing as the music was turned off, leaving the sound of people fucking screaming at each other in the next room.

Needless to say, Sarah and Ryan had met.

-

"God, you're such a fucking asshole, and you're not even gay, what the fuck- the fuck is this- seriously Brendon- what the fuck-" Ryan stopped yelling at his ex-boyfriend to slap him across the face again, having gathered somewhat of an audience as the music was turned off and people began to trail in.

"Gay, really, Brendon, gay?" Sarah shook her head, stepping away from the seventeen year old as Kitty pulled her into a hug. "I'm not your little sexuality experiment - I'm not a fucking pussytaster session, and you know what? Fuck this, Kitty, we're leaving- Lindsey?"

"I'm staying with Jamia." Lindsey met her girlfriend's gaze across the huddle of people, raising her eyebrows at Frank who was practically leant on her like she was a sofa or something.

"I hope I never have to see your lying piece of shit face ever again, Brendon fucking Urie." And with that, Sarah and Kitty left, the door slamming behind them.

"Fuck, I wish I could have a dramatic exit like that but this is my house- fucking go, Brendon, get the fuck out of my house, and my life- yeah, my fucking life. You're a liar, you're a cheater and I fucking hate you." Ryan stepped away from Brendon, towards Ray.

"Ryan, please, I'm sorry, it was nothing- I... I love you, I-" Brendon stumbled the words out: last ditch attempts to hold onto what he didn't deserve, and god, at this point, he was nothing but worthless, and he knew it more than he knew how much Ryan hated him, and well, Ryan had slapped him nine times now.

Ten times.

"Fucking good for you, I don't care." Ryan screamed back at him, before settling into a smirk, and gaining a reaction from the 'crowd' gathered: the crowd being the guests at Patrick's birthday party, and Patrick was nothing but ignored as he stood in the corner, his head spinning at a million miles an hour.

"Fucking please-" Brendon sure was stubborn, and even though he knew that at this point, he deserved nothing more than another slap to the face, there was absolutely nothing that stopped him from trying, well except, maybe, another slap to the face from Ryan, who was seriously getting good at slapping fuckboys with all of this practice all of a sudden.

"Go fuck yourself-" Ryan had already decided that there wasn't a fucking chance in hell that he was even going to consider forgiving Brendon, let alone actually treating him civilly or like a human being, because in Ryan's eyes, he was nothing but the world's biggest asshole, and in terms of personality, not body, which really fucking sucked, because Ryan, being a gay dude, did appreciate a bit of ass.

And amidst the yelling and commotion was a voice, well, more of a scream.

"Stop!"

All eyes fell upon the voice: Patrick. 

-


	30. Gay Guys Don't Grow On Trees

Ryan's head was spinning.

In fact, it hadn't stopped spinning since the party and since everyone slowly left until he was left alone in his living room, and that was when he started to cry, and from then on, the difficultly had solely resided in the matter of trying to get himself to stop.

Ryan Ross had no self control and there was nothing like the smack in the face reminder of that in the form of the fact that he still hadn't quite grown the guts to really let Brendon go: he just hadn't the guts to make himself hate the guy, let alone the power to delete him from his life, and god forbid that he actually even considered moving on.

It was just fucked up, and it was just sitting alone on his cluttered living room floor for two hours or until things stopped feeling really - it never quite got to that point: it ended in him giving up, and still he couldn't quite give up on Brendon.

He turned his phone off and threw it behind the sofa: somewhere where he knew he'd never have the motivation to look in, and fuck, by two in the morning, Ryan had concluded that the only good thing to come out of this party was the excess of alcohol littered around his house, and a state such as this, he was all too quick to utilise and take advantage of such a thing.

He'd rather be drunk than sad, but Ryan was just drunk and sad, and that was the absolute worst. At the very least, it fitted his mood, and that was just fucking fantastic.

And still, several hours on, Ryan was still nothing more than fucking fantastic.

Come ten in the morning, Ryan was slightly more sober, but in no way less sad, and in no way less fucked up, and god, all that alcohol had definitely hadn't helped his head, and in fact, it was spinning like crazy, and he couldn't even find any fucking pills to shut up the screaming inside his head.

Ryan wasn't the best when it came to break ups, to say the least, but then again, Brendon wasn't just any kind of asshole disposable boyfriend, and even if it only became clear to him now, Ryan was definitely in love with him, and dear god, that fucking sucked.

And if his headache wasn't killing him enough already, some asshole had decided to ring the doorbell at ten am on a Saturday, when Ryan was in a state close to committing mass genocide: a state in which he was fucked up enough to consider getting drunk again, because that was a fucking great idea, but then again, Ryan wasn't Gee, and therefore wasn't the specialist in fucking great and fucking life ruining ideas.

And he swore that if the person behind the door was Brendon, that he was going to fucking punch him this time, despite the fact that Ryan couldn't punch for shit, but whatever, he'd drank enough in the last twelve hours for that not to matter in the slightest.

With a great deal of reluctance, he eventually found himself opening the door and looking wide eyed up at the girl on the other side: it took him a minute, and that was mostly the fault of the alcohol, but soon enough he came to the realisation that this was in fact none other than Sarah... Brendon's girlfriend.

And Ryan hadn't the slightest clue what to make of this.

"Hey, look, I wouldn't blame you if you hated me, but I honestly had no idea about this, and I really appreciate it if I could just have a few minutes to talk to you - this is driving me crazy and I imagine that it's much the same for you." She sighed out, forcing a smile in Ryan's direction, and leaving the seventeen year old to only raise his eyebrows and shrug in response.

"Whatever, I'm hungover as fuck and I need a distraction from this eternal compulsion to punch myself in the face. Come in."

Sarah thought it best not to question the guy and simply made her way inside, raising her eyebrows a little at the mess, but saying nothing of it, and resorted to just following Ryan into the living room and taking a seat beside him on the floor.

"The sofa's like drenched in beer and I've decided that I'm going to go as long as I possibly can without having to clean that up." He added as explanation in response to the fact that he'd chosen the floor as the best place to sit.

"So, when did you and Brendon get together? Is it alright if I ask you questions about this- I mean, I just need to clear some things up in my head, like hell, this is confusing as fuck, but-"

"Ages ago now, months..." Ryan cut her off, simply charging straight into a response. "I was the new kid at school and I sat next to him in music class and I was the gay kid and he was like the gay king and- well, not so much anymore it seems, but we hit it off, and you know, it was fucking perfect until recently... until... well... I guess everything was perfect until Pete died... that was when everyone fell apart, I guess. Pete was Patrick's best friend... and Pete shot himself about two months ago- and fuck, fuck, fuck-"

"I'm sorry." She grabbed his hand, in turn, his attention, meeting his gaze with a smile, and goddamn, somehow, she was just good at making him feel better and just miraculously making everything alright. "That's horrible. Brendon and I met at this comic book store where I work... like, fuck, I didn't even think about it as so earlier, but it was fucking weird - he kept turning up and just staying there for my whole shift, and then one day I asked him about it and I guess, he was just kind of sweet and kind of awkward about it, so I guess, I just thought it was cute and then we went on a few dates about a month ago and... god, I never even would have guessed that he had a boyfriend, I'm so sorry I-"

"We started arguing a lot recently and I guess it all makes sense now: he never had any time to spend with me and I didn't get it - I thought he was just being an asshole to spite me because I was spending so much time with Patrick after Pete... well... Pete- Patrick wasn't okay, to say the least, he stopped speaking, and he really needed someone, like I was just being a friend, because Patrick really needed one, and Brendon, he just didn't seem to care about Patrick at all and it was weird, I just- I guess it makes sense that he was with you the whole time though."

"I'm so sorry, seriously, you're a really nice guy looking after Patrick like that and you don't deserve this mess at all, fuck, I'm so sorry- I... I just-"

"Look, don't even apologise, Brendon fucked us both here, probably literally too, and it's not your fault... he's just an asshole, and I just- still I can't just wonder about him, because although he is an asshole, he's not just spiteful for the sake of it - there's a reason, there's always a reason, and I can't shake the feeling that there's something more to this, but, hell, I can't bare to speak to him, he'll, I just-"

"I'll talk to him if you like? It's okay if you don't want me to- I mean-"

"No, that'd be... that'd be great." Ryan looked up, smiling for a second. "You know, I can kind of see why he fell for you, you know."

"Stop right there, Romeo, I don't want all the gay guys fucking over their lives by falling for me." She winked, getting up with a smile. "I'll talk to him, though, see what I can do."

"Thanks." And that was the first time in far too long that Ryan was really smiling. 

-

Patrick had left with Joe that night, and he'd left as nothing short of a crying mess: Ryan too distraught to even take much notice of him, and it hurt, it hurt like fucking hell, but he could count on Joe at the very least.

Patrick hadn't managed to stop crying for a long time afterwards, but he'd calmed down a little by the time the two had made it out of the party and into Joe's house, where Joe had insisted that Patrick drank at least seven thousand glasses of water, and Patrick did so - mostly because it was just something to do.

"You're not okay - I can tell that at the very least." Joe sighed out, finally finding a moment to take his jacket off and joining Patrick on the sofa. "Are you going to speak again? Because it wasn't bad, and you know, you don't have to be mute, I think it'd be for the best if you started speaking again, but, of course, it's your choice in the end and don't ever let me or anyone force you into anything, you got that, Patrick?"

He nodded and finished the glass of water.

"I'm sorry that Brendon was enough of an asshole to cheat on Ryan like that and end up ruining your birthday party because of it, that's just so fucking horrible- I... I want to slap him as well, but I reckon he's been slapped just enough today already." Joe let out a half-hearted laugh at that as Patrick only shrugged, eventually seeming to space out while staring at the wall opposite.

"I wish you could tell me how to make this better." Joe sighed out, and Patrick turned, smiling a little as he grabbed his hand. "It's okay, though." Joe added, almost in afterthought.

Patrick shrugged in response, as if to say that the fact that it was okay was really nothing but questionable, which it was.

"I wish I could make this better, but I know I can't, not even Ryan can. Only Pete can, can't he?" Joe sighed out, much expecting the answer in the form of a nod he received, as he'd know Patrick long enough to know that it could never be any other way.

"Pete was a really great guy wasn't he? I'm sad I never knew him, honestly - I want to know just how someone could make you that happy, because god he must be special: you're important, Patrick and you deserve to be happy and this isn't fair - not at all. And I can't expect you to just magically move on, though, of course, it's complicated and messed up and no one can really move on, not really."

"Mikey has." And those were two words that Patrick never should have wasted his speech upon, but they just slipped out, shocking the two of them entirely.

"Patrick-" Joe's eyes widened, almost grinning up at him, because goddamn, Joe was just far too enthusiastic about the fact that Patrick could possibly be getting better.

"Mikey's moved on and I can tell even though no one noticed, because I always noticed- I always noticed everything and in consequence I knew far more about Pete than he ever did, and I can just read it off Mikey: he arrived late with Ray with his hair messed up and smelling just far too much of deodorant sprayed in order to mask the scent of what he'd done, and he was nervous and awkward with Ryan, and Ray got away from Mikey as soon as he could just to hide and conceal anything to cause suspicion and it's not fair because he's okay and in love with Ray and I'm... I'm just... I can't even keep this silence..." Patrick trailed off, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry but I love hearing you talk, it's weird, I guess, but good weird..." Joe's first response was entirely off topic and irritated Patrick just a little. "But look, I don't know enough about Mikey to make any kind of judgement based on this, but what I do know is that Pete wouldn't want you to destroy yourself by hiding away and not speaking - he cared about you and I'm pretty sure this would upset him."

"This is complicated." Patrick pulled his knees up to his chest. "I'm tired and my head hurts."

"You can sleep here- my parents won't mind, and I don't want you to walk home alone in the dark like this, okay?" Joe flashed him a smile but Patrick only shrugged.

"I'm going to go visit his grave." Patrick got up before Joe could stop him and placed the glass, now devoid of water, on the table.

"Patrick, it's dark and it's late and it's not safe and I- I don't want you to go alone, look, in the morning, okay?" Joe got up, grabbing Patrick's arm, but the more ginger of the two, shook him off, shaking his head violently. "Patrick, please-"

"I'm going to go, Joe, you can come with me if you want, but- I'm going, like it or not. It's not your choice, okay?" Patrick pulled on his hoodie and made his way to the door followed by a slightly disgruntled yet sympathetic Joe Trohman, who had rather quickly come to the conclusion that there was far too much in the world that he'd do for Patrick Stump - it wasn't even a gay thing, unlike just about everything else, he just really cared.

The two walked down the road in silence for ten minutes or so before Patrick filled the silence again, and really, Joe was just overjoyed that he was talking enough to generally disregard any unfavourable content of his words. "I should have told him I loved him sooner, before he got with Mikey and then maybe this would have all been okay."

"You can't blame yourself." Joe reassured him with a rather pathetic smile that Patrick didn't particularly care for.

"What I actually should have done was stop being such a coward about everything and actually tell someone that my best friend wanted to kill himself and then told me he stopped cutting but still wore long sleeves everyday and I only pretended not to notice, and I need to stop that- I need... I can't just fade away and stay quiet and let this slide, and I need to talk again and I need- I need to tell people about the things I notice if it could save them."

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea, and I'm really glad you're talking permanently now - I was kind of scared this would all fade away in the morning, because despite how much I care about you, Patrick, it's so much nicer to have someone who says something back, you know what I mean?"

Patrick shrugged in response. "I guess. But about this telling people thing- are you sure, because I... I have two things to tell you about your friends that I noticed and they're bad things and I- I don't want them to end up like- I want to tell you, but I don't want them to be angry."

"Doesn't matter, Patrick, I'll take the blame - just tell me." Joe perked up a little at that, his eyes widening a little as he struggled to guess just what Patrick could possibly be referring to.

"Spencer has some sort of drug problem and Dallon's bulimic. Don't act shocked and ask me if I'm sure - I'm sure and I know, one hundred percent, and I want something to be done about this."

-

"Honestly, I preferred the other one."

It had soon become rather apparent to Bert McCracken that Gee breaking up with Frank in no way ensured that he'd get peaceful sleep before midday again, and in fact the only thing that had changed was the seventeen year old ringing his doorbell at stupid 'o' clock in the morning, asking for that damn asshole of a housemate that he was now considering slaughtering.

"What?" Dallon's cheeks flushed a horrible shade of tomato red as he found himself looking up at the pissed off, greasy haired twenty something year old who looked like he'd much rather punch himself in the face than ever come acquainted with Dallon Weekes.

And Dallon just hated to admit that he was intimidated, and that was just the least he could say.

"The other boyfriend. Frank, you know him? He usually provided some entertainment when he got me out of bed to answer the door far too early, and you just look scared shitless." Bert scoffed as he looked the teenager up and down once again. "I might not even let you in, I mean, this isn't worth my time so why should it be worth yours?"

"Because you're a nice guy at heart?" And it was a long shot and Dallon was nothing but practically shot down for it, but really what else could he expect.

"Bert, fucking let me see him." The two jumped at the sound of a third voice, turning to see a dark haired, rather pissed off looking woman: Lindsey. "And stop terrorising teenagers, will you?" She added, taking note of Dallon's presence.

"At least I'm not the one fucking them, Lindsey." Bert shrugged it off with one final snide comment.

"Yeah, I wonder why no one wants to sleep with someone like you, huh?" Lindsey rolled her eyes, stopping and turning to Dallon. "Hey... you're Dallon, aren't you?" He seemed to fit Jamia's description and unlike Bert McCracken here, Lindsey actually possessed some degree of intelligence.

"Yeah, I- how do you know who I am?" Dallon asked, wide-eyed and utterly awkward, and generally boring, in Bert's opinion anyway.

"I've heard quite a bit about you, and from different people, but I make my own judgement of people, so what my girlfriend said accounts for nothing, okay?" She added with a smile, Bert rolling his eyes as he made his way back down the corridor and back to his bedroom, leaving Lindsey to deal with Dallon, or as Bert had decided to refer to him 'Frank Number Two', because well, in Bert's rather narrow-minded head, he was nothing but that.

"Your girlfriend?" Dallon asked as Lindsey locked the door behind them: something Bert had entirely neglected to do, and she couldn't help but wonder just how they'd escaped being robbed or murdered or anything for years now.

"Jamia - you met her at that party, did you not?" And from that moment on Dallon knew he was utterly fucked, because Lindsey had most definitely not gotten the best first impression of him. "I can tell from that look, yeah, she's a bit... well... she's a bit of a bitch sometimes, but she means well - she really cares about Frank and she only sees you as something that ruined Frank and Gee's relationship, but I know far too well that that's simply not true. Don't worry about her though, she'll get used to you, and if not, I can always talk her round."

"Thanks." Dallon added, his faith in humanity slowly resorted - courtesy of Lindsey Ballato.

"Now we've just got to pray that Gee isn't passed out drunk somewhere because dear god, I don't have the patience to deal with him like that, and I'm a pretty patience person." She let out a chuckle, but Dallon only shrugged with an awkward smile: unable to forget what Gee had told him that night.

"Lindsey..." Gee groaned, looking up from his cellphone as the two made their way into the kitchen; the twenty five year old sat at the kitchen table, looking out into the garden through the window as he smoked what was probably at least his third cigarette, and of course, all while clad in nothing more than an oversized shirt that reached halfway down his thighs, and as Lindsey imagined, but didn't particularly want to find out, no underwear either. 

"Tell Bert to stop being such an asshole when he answers the door, will you?" She asked, rolling her eyes and sitting down at the kitchen table - opposite Gee, leaving Dallon to rather awkwardly take the seat next to her, as he couldn't help but feel anything but utterly out of place here.

"I can't, Lindsey, he's an asshole and he will be an asshole. I can't tell him what to do - he's not a fucking dog." Gee rolled his eyes, only then actually taking note of Dallon's presence, and in consequence, widening his eyes a little, but responding with nothing but silence.

"He certainly acts like a dog." Lindsey added and Gee couldn't help but scoff at little at her comment. "You might want to acknowledge your 'boyfriend's presence now, you know?"

Gee turned to face Dallon, blushing a little. "He's not my boyfriend, we just fucked a few times and honestly he's a nice guy, but- I can't see it working - I care about Frank too much."

"Obviously not enough, seeing as you cheated on him with Dallon." Lindsey couldn't help but add, staring Gee down until he finally gave in and actually civilly acknowledged Dallon's existence. "But whatever you say, Gee."

"Hey Dallon." Gee sighed out, waving awkwardly in the seventeen year old's direction. "About the thing- are you okay?"

Dallon only shrugged in response. "It doesn't just magically get better, but you want me to say 'yes', so whatever, yes, I'm okay."

"What's this thing?" Lindsey knew it wasn't her business, but Gee was already being disrespectful enough to ensure that no matter how nosy she was, it would barely matter at all in comparison.

"It's kind of private... I... sorry... I-" Dallon choked out, turning tomato red once again.

"That's fine." Lindsey assured him with a smile, leaving Gee to look between the two of them with raised eyebrows.

"Lindsey, why are you here?" He asked, speaking cautiously, and almost like he was afraid of her - not that he'd be wrong to be.

"Did you hear what happened at Patrick's party-"

"Yeah, Mikey's been texting me every minute about how I'm such a douchebag for sleeping with Dallon - I'm well aware." Gee rolled his eyes, pulling his knees up to his chest as he offered an apologetic, sympathetic, kind of pathetic smile in Dallon's direction.

"No, do you know about Frank and how fucked up he was? Do you know about how he took every drug under the sun and nearly killed himself in the process? And do you know how Jamia had to single handedly get him to puke it all up so he didn't have to go to hospital? And do you know that was all because of what you did?"

"You're over exaggerating - he got high, so what? He got high and then threw up - it's a party, whatever-"

"No, Gee, she's not... I was there, I-I- I was- when Frank was puking into the kitchen sink, I was there and I saw it and I- he was... he wasn't good: he was absolutely fucked up and Jamia slapped me when I told her my name, but I can kind of see why now." Dallon explained, stuttering just a little as he spoke, and tripping over his metaphorical feet in one big escapade to avoid just what he was doing next to the puke sink in the first place.

"Tell your girlfriend not to slap my boyfriend, Lindsey." Gee snapped out, biting down on his bottom lip.

"You just said he wasn't-"

"Maybe I changed my mind."

"What like when you changed your mind about loving Frank?"

-

Alicia Simmons hated school, to say the least.

It wasn't a passionate, fearsome kind of hatred, though - it was just an ignorant, purposeful nonchalance, because no matter how hard she tried, Alicia just couldn't see the purpose in school, or anything - the default life kind of things, anyway: she had no interest in getting a job, or getting married, or having kids, and really she was beginning to lack the motivation to actually do something with herself.

And with the fact that she hadn't even bothered to show up to school half of the time, she'd been kicked out of the netball team and most people had simply just forgotten that she had ever even existed in the first place, and just like that, Alicia's only friend became Bob Bryar, and really, she didn't care nearly as much as society said she should.

Bob was a nice guy, despite the first impression he gives off, he really was the nicest person that Alicia had ever met, and really, when she thought about it, Bob Bryar was the only person she wanted to be friends with, and Bob Bryar was the only person who deserved to be friends with her - arrogant connotations of the aforementioned statement aside.

But of course, there was one tiny little problem in all of that, and that was nothing more than the fact that Bob Bryar was a twenty six year old drug dealer and most definitely did not go to the school that Alicia was supposed to attend everyday. And today just happened to be one of the unfortunate few in which she hadn't managed to avoid going there, and the first since she had come to the conclusion that Bob Bryar was her only friend.

She really wasn't used to this, to say the least, after all, she'd always had some sort of attention from people at school, even if the majority of it was nothing short of unwanted, but still, she felt weird walking into school alone and then with the fact that no one ever seemed to notice her, and perhaps that was vanity at its finest, and perhaps this was what she deserved.

Perhaps this was what karma gave you for fucking up your life to hang out with a drug dealer that's almost a decade older than you.

But when Alicia thought all hope was lost, she found herself face to face with the only person in this school that could never ever possibly forget that she existed.

"Mikey, hey?" She called out, causing Mikey to stop in his tracks and turn, sending her a smile when their gazes met. She made her way over to him with an awkward blush as she soon came to realise that she had absolutely no idea as to what she was letting herself into when she started a conversation with Mikey Way.

"You haven't been at school in a while, have you?" He asked, glancing her up and down and trying with all his might not to stare at her boobs, but he was a teenage boy and Alicia Simmons was just attractive, so really, there was a great deal of difficulty here.

She shook her head, sighing out and trying not to think about the girl who'd maybe once been her best friend walk past the two of them without as much as a 'hello'. "I-I... I've spent a lot of time well... with Bob, I guess... I just... I don't really want to be here."

"No one does." Mikey reassured her with a smile. "High school is of course nothing more than the world's greatest form of hell. But, you do actually have to show up."

Alicia shrugged it off, knowing that she'd managed to avoid doing so for far too long now. "Anything I missed while I was off?"

"Well, it was Patrick's birthday a few days ago and Brendon and Ryan broke up because Ryan found out that he was cheating on her with this girl called Sarah who's in a punk band with Jamia Nestor, and Frank took far too many drugs and nearly died-"

"Shit, he actually had all that Bob sold him- fuck, he should not have done that. Seriously, is he okay?" Alicia's eyes widened as she came to remember Bob telling her about how Frank had practically paid his rent for the next month, and really, she hadn’t thought all that much of it then, but fucking hell, now, she knew she wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it for a good few days now.

"Yeah, he's fine, he's kind of depressed because his boyfriend cheated on him, but otherwise, he's good. No one's seen Patrick in a few days - Ryan's heard that he's with his friend Joe, but from then on, everyone's just a little worried." Mikey sighed out, shaking his head. "Everything's fucked up since Pete died."

"I'm sorry." She added, biting down on her lip as she couldn't help but feel like this was somehow her fault, as when Pete and Mikey had been together, she'd always been nothing more than a spiteful bitch to them.

"It's not your fault." Mikey promised her with a smile. "Hey, you're in my history class, aren't you? Walk with me?" Alicia nodded, smiling on the outside, but still, she could never quite shut up the voice on the inside that was screaming at her in protest: claiming that she should never ever talk to Mikey Way again.

"So what's happened with you? Any news?" Mikey asked, keeping it casual, and in turn, incredibly awkward and forced.

"No, nothing much, I guess. With Bob, it's just simple - we talk and eat poptarts and sometimes smoke weed and it's fun- I don't know what's so good about it, it's just him: he's my best friend and despite the fact that he's a twenty six year old drug dealer, he's the best best-friend I could ever ask for. Maybe I'd even date him if he wasn't nine years older than me - fuck society and fuck social rules, seriously."

Mikey only nodded awkwardly in response, focusing on staring straight ahead and not at Alicia's chest, and really, considering that it was him, he was doing pretty well so far, but fuck, there was that wave of nostalgia as he was almost drowned in the memory of that time he'd spent his lunchtime watching Alicia 'play netball' when Ray and Frank where nowhere to be found, and Pete had decided to come up to him and casually insult him.

Fuck, that felt like forever ago, when in reality, it was only a matter of months.

Only months ago, Frank had been off school with Jamia, meeting Gee Way for the first time, Ray had been studying and not fucking Mikey in his spare time, Mikey was uncomfortably heterosexual and more of a douchebag than he liked to think he was now.

And most importantly, back then, Pete wasn't dead.

-

"Frank, it's obvious as fuck, it's as obvious as the fact that Mikey and Ray are secretly fucking-"

"What?" Frank exclaimed, his eyes widening until they were nothing short of the size of the moon, and it was only like eleven in the morning.

"Oh, you hadn't caught on to that yet?" Jamia smirked a little, raising her eyebrows as she turned away, putting the cigarette packet back into her bag, after having lit her own, and taken enough pity upon Frank to let him bum a fucking smoke off her, and mostly in the hope that it'd help keep him quiet.

"No..." Frank sighed out, trailing off a little: his gaze focused on the iron bars school fence in front of them - smoking behind the art block at break time didn't exactly give you the best sight seeing opportunities, but then again, it kept Frank's nicotine cravings at bay for another few hours, so he could over look the shitty-ass view for that.

"Well, okay then, but it's seriously fucking obvious - they keep arriving late to things together, also like Lindsey told me that she saw them kissing at the park the other day, so yeah, I can make my assumptions wisely." Jamia grinned, blowing smoke directly in Frank's face and just for the absolute hell of it.

"So, are you going to blackmail them about it?" Frank asked, eyebrows raised, and wondering just how Mikey had managed to move on from Pete already: he wasn't about to question the guy on his life choices, but he was pretty sure that like four seconds ago Mikey was in a deep state of mourning.

"No." Jamia shrugged it off. "It's going to be a short and messy kind of relationship - I can tell, and that's not something I want to go near with a ten foot pole, I'm not stupid, Frank, I'm not you." And she gained a friendly shove for that smirk, but in her mind, it was well fucking worth it. "Mikey's sad and not thinking straight- well, by dating a guy, he's definitely not, but- he just wants someone who makes the hurt inside go away, whereas Ray really cares about him, and he's not going to be able to deal with the fact that Pete's always going to be first with Mikey."

"I'm not looking forward to cleaning up after that one." Frank sighed out, biting down on his bottom lip, and trying not to think about Gee, and failing fucking spectacularly.

"Yeah, anyway well done, you did a pretty good job at changing the conversation topic, which of course only highlights the fact that you're still stupidly in love with him, and it's killing you, Frank, it's fucking you up and you need to deal with it, because you are becoming almost draining to hang out with and I don't want to have to go through the bother of finding another smoke buddy."

"I don't love him - he cheated on me with Dallon fucking punch me in the face my eyes are brighter than your future Weekes." Frank protested, rolling his eyes, and once again doing a great job of proving just how bad of a liar he was.

"That's an interesting middle name, to say the least." Jamia shrugged it off, chuckling a little. "But, you're totally fucking hung up over him - you either fix this yourself or get over him, okay, Iero? I'm not sorting out your shit for you, again. I'm your best friend, not your mother."

"I doubt my mum would want to do this for me either." Frank added, pouting a little, and taking a moment to wonder just how Mrs Iero would react to the news that Gee had cheated on her son - honestly, she'd probably be more upset than Frank: she really fucking liked him.

"Fucking tragic, Iero, get over it - get yourself together." Jamia rolled her eyes, finishing her cigarette and stumping it out against the sole of her black converse. "I'm going to be dragged into helping you, whether I like it or not, aren't I?"

"Yup." Frank shrugged it off, biting back a grin that would sure to get him a 'friendly' slap across the face from Jamia.

"You're fucking pathetic, you know that?" Jamia shook her head, and resorting to lighting another cigarette, because fuck it, she was going to need it if she was getting roped into this shit. "So, are you going to get over him or pull some pathetic stunt to get him back?"

"He doesn't want me back." Frank shrugged, and making a very painfully obvious sniffle sound, and really he was nothing short of being the new first world problem meme right now.

"Right so, neither? Not helpful, Frank." She rolled her eyes, turning to her best friend and grabbing his hand. "Look, shall we try to fix this and get him back first and then when that plan falls flat on its face you're going to have just accept it and get over him? Okay?"

"Fuck it, whatever." 

"Your enthusiasm is seriously motivational." Jamia pulled out her cellphone, sending a quick text to Lindsey with details of what was now happening, because Lindsey would seriously be far better at this shit than Jamia could even dream of being: the key difference here being the fact that Lindsey actually had some patience whatsoever, and Jamia was an intolerant bitch at the best of times.

"How do I even get him back when he's moved on to Dallon fucking 'the chances of letting you have your boyfriend back are slimmer than me' Weekes, and I'm like a potato with eyes in comparison." Frank groaned out, again utilising his newfound talent in inventing Dallon questionable, yet promising middle names.

"Fucking simple - he cheated on you: he's in the wrong here, play on his guilt, also it's Gee, like buy him a miniskirt or something, whatever." Jamia rolled her eyes, again finding herself absolutely enthralled by Frank's plenitude of intelligence.

"That's like manipulation." Frank protested, his eyes growing wide, and almost like he forgot that he was talking to Jamia Nestor right now.

"And technically so is cheating on you, so it's just getting even with him." Jamia pointed out, raising her eyebrows at Frank, who found himself in serious moral dilemma right now. "Look, Frank, get over it, sort your fucking life out and I'll buy you ice cream on Friday, huh?"

"And if it goes wrong, find me another cute gay guy who will provide me with cigarettes on a regular basis - how about that?"

"Gay guys don't just grow on trees, you know, but I'll try my best, for you Frank, I'll try my best."

And that was just about as far as Jamia stretched when it came to friendship.

-


	31. Brendone With Your Shit

Brendon wasn't himself lately, but then again with the double break up, that was really to be expected, but it just wasn't that - Brendon hadn't been himself in a long time now.

His life had become a sit at home and lock himself in his room for hours kind of ordeal, and really, nobody had even noticed enough to care, and perhaps that was okay, and perhaps it wasn't: he couldn't tell the difference between reality and the opinions of his sick, twisted, arrogant head anymore.

But he wasn't depressed: he didn't spend every second of his life with the barrel of a gun pressed up against his temples, he didn't spend each night with a blade pressed against his wrists, and he didn't go through his days in a pit of self loathing with no hope of escape.

This was something else entirely.

And this was something that had started several months ago now, this had started when his sister, Kara, came home for the first time in years, and his mum hadn't even said a word - it had been a glare and then drink it away kind of affair, and Brendon could barely even make eye contact with his older sister before his mum was out the door and on the way to her boyfriend's house, like a fucking thirteen year old.

And then, Brendon had to tell her, because his mother hadn't- his mother never fucking bothered, and Brendon couldn't believe it at all, and his heart almost seized up in his chest when his twenty four year old sister asked him where dad was, and Brendon had to tell her that he shot himself two years ago.

Kara drank all the alcohol in the house that night, and had passed out on the sofa around midnight, leaving Brendon to stay up all until his mum got home at four in the morning to let her, and her boyfriend in.

Her boyfriend was an asshole - a fucking asshole who clearly wanted nothing but money and a fuck, and yet, somehow, his mum had drunk enough alcohol to manage to convince herself that she loved this man. At least the guy didn't technically live with them, but he definitely spent a great deal of his time at the Urie household, and Brendon couldn't help but wonder if the guy actually had a home of his own, or if he just wasted away the time when his mum was at work by sitting in McDonalds or something.

Brendon knew barely anything about the guy, but there was one thing that he knew for certain, and that was that he absolutely fucked hated both him and Kara.

Kara had come home after her boyfriend had turned into an abusive asshole and ruined her life and took her house, and now she had nowhere left to go except home, even if home had been made a hellhole in the past few years she'd missed.

She was nice enough, though, even if her and Brendon had never been best buds, she was someone there on those nights that his mum never came back.

And as Brendon sat in his bedroom alone again, he came to remember how he'd never ever told anyone about this mess, because he wasn't the sharing type: he was the cold asshole that kept this all up inside, and he was the cold asshole that would kill himself doing so.

Ryan thought he knew everything about Brendon, but in reality, he knew nothing.

-

Sarah was just a little uncomfortable when it came to showing up at Brendon Urie's house at five in the afternoon on a Monday, but she promised that she'd do this for Ryan, and the guy was definitely not okay, and Sarah was determined to prove that she wasn't some sort of bitch that had dragged Ryan's boyfriend away from him, even if it ensured that she ran the risk of actually meeting the people who had brought someone as cold and fucking cruel as Brendon Urie into the world.

"Hello?" Sarah jumped a little as the door opened to reveal a woman, most likely in her early twenties or late teens, and really, Sarah was just hoping that this was some freakishly young mother rather than his latest girlfriend. "Uhh... can I help you?"

"Oh.. yeah... sorry... I... can I speak to Brendon?" Sarah asked, blushing a little and just praying that this girl wasn't his girlfriend, and that she wasn't going to get slapped in the face for even wanting to speak to him.

"Yeah, okay, I guess, if he wants to. Who are you?" She seemed a little wary, raising her eyebrows at Sarah like she innately just didn't trust her.

"I'm Sarah, I- I'm his friend- are you like his jealous girlfriend or something, because you're actually really fucking-" Sarah's words were soon cut off by a fit of laughter.

"His girlfriend? God, no!" She shook her head, rolling her eyes. "I'm Kara, his sister, look, sorry, I haven't exactly had the best of days, just come in, yeah?"

"Brendon never said he had a sister." Sarah noted as she followed Kara inside, leaving the twenty four year old to only shrug her shoulders in response.

"He doesn't tell people a lot."

"Yeah, I gathered." Sarah rolled her eyes, trying her best not to think of the months that they dated without knowledge of his boyfriend.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kara raised her eyebrows at that.

"Doesn't matter."

"Okay... that's his room... I'll leave you to it, please don't fuck, because I'm staying in, okay?" And Sarah could only blush a horrible shade of red, having no time to utter a response before Kara had already made her way back downstairs.

And now, all she had left to do, was actually fucking talk to him, which was really the hardest part here, because every rational part of her head was telling her to turn back now, and fucking run, because there wasn't a chance in hell that she could ever even consider trusting Brendon Urie, but she'd promised Ryan Ross, and a promise was a fucking promise.

-

"Brendon?" The seventeen year old almost jumped off the bed as his bedroom door was pushed open by none other than fucking Sarah Orzechowski, and that was a mini heart attack to say the least.

"Sarah? I..." And there wasn't a single word that came to his head in that moment, and he resorted to simply staring at her as she closed the door behind her and made her way over to the bed, sitting down beside her ex-boyfriend like this was normal and that she didn't want to slap him right across the face right now, but really, Ryan had already slapped him enough to last a lifetime at Patrick's party.

"Your sister let me in. She's nice, didn't know you had a sister." Sarah knew it was the most awkward conversation starter ever, but really there was no easy way to go about this, and at least, unlike Brendon, she was actually trying.

"Yeah, she moved out a few years ago but then came back a few months ago. I didn't really tell anyone, I guess, I mean, it's not that important, but yeah, I have a sister - she's alright." Brendon shrugged it off, just praying that Sarah would shut up about his family, and also leave before his mum and her boyfriend got home, because that would most certainly be an awkward situation.

"You're not alright, though are you?" Sarah met a rather shocked gaze, on Brendon's part, but really, it didn't exactly take Einstein to figure it out.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Brendon retorted with entirely too much anger for the situation, because he was really nothing more than defensive little fuckboy.

"That's supposed to mean that you got dumped twice, although, admittedly, you did deserve it, but still, you're sat alone in your room feeling sorry for yourself." Sarah noted, eyebrows raised a little as she stared Brendon down: insistent upon releasing some sort of truth from his lips, and at this point more for the benefit of her own ego than anything at all relating to Ryan Ross.

"What do you even want me to say?" Brendon sighed out, shrugging a little to show Sarah just how fucking done he was with her shit, Brendone with her shit. "Why are you even here? You don't care about me, surely."

She let out a disappointed sigh, as having to explain this shit to her favourite fuckboy wasn't exactly high on her top ten things she wanted to do today, but with a few reluctant seconds, she finally admitted the truth. "Ryan asked me to come."

"You're talking to my ex-boyfriend now?" Brendon asked, eyebrows raised just a little in expression of the fact that he really wasn't expecting that.

"Yeah, we have something in common - we both hate you." And Sarah smiled that kind of fucking Sarah smile that Sarah smiles when she doesn't fuckboys to know if she's kidding or not.

"Well, I'm glad to know you're getting along." Brendon rolled his eyes, mustering up all the willpower not to get butthurt. "Are you going to steal all of my friends from me or just the ones I like most?"

"Stop being such a bitter cunt for maybe five minutes, huh, how about that?" Sarah lost it, grabbing Brendon's attention with that statement. "Sorry, I... Ryan, he doesn't hate you, I don't hate you... you've just been an asshole and Ryan really loved you so he's really upset, and he was too scared to come here himself, but he wanted me to find out what was up with you, because he knows that this isn't you, and that this isn't just you being an asshole - there's something more."

Brendon shook his head firmly at even the suggestion of such a statement, because really, with a subject such as this, he couldn't help but be defensive, because this was something he never wanted to explain again.

"Okay, so I'll tell Ryan that he's wrong, and you are actually just a dickhead who hates him-" And Brendon didn't even let Sarah finish that sentence.

"No, please don't do that." He sighed out, shaking his head and pulling his knees up to his chest. "It's personal... Ryan kind of knows like one thing, but there's many other things, and this one thing was years ago, but then it all kicked off again recently."

"Is this to do with Pete's death? Because I know that you were the least affected by his death, so I'm not going to let you use this as an excuse - this is someone's life, Brendon, and in comparison to Patrick, it didn't affect you at all!" Sarah raised her voice again, and Brendon just took it, because he had nothing better to do, and he had no apology worthwhile offering. "Sorry." The apology, of course, soon following - Sarah was a nice person, for the most part.

"Pete and I didn't get along, but I still miss him, I guess, I mean, lots of people don't know how to deal with these things, for most people it's the worst thing that has ever happened in their lives, and then maybe in some cases their parents splitting up is second, and that happened when they were too young to even know what was happening, and- and in Patrick's case, the worst thing that has ever happened to him was when Pete dated Mikey instead of him. He doesn't know how to deal with shit - he has no coping methods, this is new to him, and it's understandable that it affected him a lot."

"And you? You have some big sob story I assume then?" Sarah let out a sigh, shaking her head, and moving closer to Brendon. "Look, come on, don't try and make it about people like that - it just matters about how close you were to the guy... people shooting themself is a difficult thing for anyone to handle, but people will eventually get over and move on-"

"No, they won't, not really, not ever." Brendon snapped out in response, getting dangerously close to just blurting the truth out at this point, and really, this fucking fine line he was walking was just about to completely crumble away.

"Brendon, just shut the fuck up, when it comes to how Patrick's reacting, you don't have a fucking clue-"

"I fucking do." And at that point, Brendon stood up, because he'd utterly lost it. "I fucking know what I'm talking about, Sarah, I fucking promise you. Don't even try- look- my dad shot himself when I was fifteen, I've been through this shit before, and it doesn't get better, but at least this time wasn't the first, so it wasn't as bad-"

"Brendon!" Sarah exclaimed, the room falling into silence for entirely too long.

"My mum's boyfriend isn't a nice guy. And my mum isn't really much of a mother anymore, it got worse because I had to start thinking about it again when my sister came home, because my mum had never fucking thought to tell her, and I had to tell her that her... our dad shot himself two years ago." Brendon exhaled entirely too loudly, for a moment, making a far too big deal out of avoiding Sarah's gaze. "Ryan is the only person that knows any of this and he only knows that my dad's dead. Nothing else."

"Do you want me to tell him the rest?" Sarah finally piped up after an extended pause.

"No."

"What am I supposed to tell him then?" Sarah retorted, eyes widening as she finally manage to make eye contact with Brendon, who had sat back down at this point.

"Tell him that there's something about my dad again and it's fucking me up - tell him like you don't know what I'm really talking about so he doesn't get pissed off about the fact that I told you- because, fuck, I didn't mean to tell you- fuck, you tricked me into tell you." Brendon glared at her for a good few seconds after that, but soon lost motivation. "Don't tell him, please. I want to try to fix this with him."

"He wants to fix it with you as well, but in a friendship kind of way." Sarah sighed out, pulling her knees up to her chest. "I don’t' think he could ever trust you enough to date you again."

"And, of course, I have no way to fix that." Brendon sighed out, turning away and biting down on his bottom lip.

"I'll ask, but it's unlikely."

"I know."

"Brendon-"

"What?" He snapped in response, almost glaring at Sarah for even speaking up, and just like that, everything faded away.

"Doesn't matter."

Silence.

"Okay." And yet more silence. "You should go before my mum gets home."

"Okay." And as she did, the longest lasting silence of them all.

-

It took far much more than Brendon had initially anticipated to convince himself that he specifically wasn't leaving his shitty little bedroom and his shitty little house for the hope of running into Ryan Ross alone.

He had hopes of running into Sarah, as well, of course.

But Ryan mattering this much was another thing that Brendon hadn't initially anticipated, and was now stuck with: regardless of whether he liked it or not, but whatever, maybe he deserved this, and maybe, even when he was brought back down to reality, he still did need the fresh air, and at the very least, his own head was really beginning to drive him crazy.

Perhaps it was the churning sensation in his gut that hadn't left his body since Sarah had spoken to him yesterday, and since he'd told her everything and without even meaning to. Sarah Orzechowski was definitely something - there was no doubt about that, but still, Brendon couldn't settle the sinking feeling in his stomach as he pictured Ryan's reaction: a million times over and each time different.

And still he hadn't decided if he preferred the safety of nonchalance to the volatile nature of an over exaggerated reaction - either good or bad: Brendon just needed something other than silence and empty walls and the spinning thoughts inside his head.

When he left the house, he didn't particularly have all that much of an intention or destination in his journey - it was just walking, and it was just nothingness, and he was following his feet like they were things he could trust and not the means to his end.

Brendon's head wasn't a particularly nice place right now, to say the least, but it would do - it wasn't going to kill him, or at least Brendon didn't think so, but then again, there were an awful lot of things that Brendon Urie didn't know, and he absolutely wasn't okay with a single one of them.

How could he be? He wasn't even okay with himself, despite how he seemed: it was all an intricate facade to conceal any sign of weakness or emotion and Brendon didn't even know why he was trying half the time - he just knew that he was and that it was nothing short of a vicious cycle.

And he knew that the path his feet were taking him on right now was definitely unfamiliar, but still, he didn't seem to mind - it wasn't far from home, after all: he'd be alright in the end, no matter what, and at the very least, he most certainly find Ryan Ross in some random forest near his house that he didn't even know existed.

In fact, Brendon very much doubted that he'd find anyone here, and perhaps that was simply the best part, because maybe he did just need to be alone, but maybe his head needed to breathe, and with four walls always closing in on him, such a task was nothing but impossible.

But as the sound of two voices hit his eardrums, and almost like a sack of bricks, it became more than painfully evident that Brendon was really not alone.

Up the path ahead were two guys perhaps the same age as Brendon, or even just a little older, but not by much, not that it mattered - they were strangers, yet far too familiar, and as Brendon's gaze studied the dark hair and pale faces for entirely far too long, he finally came to conclude that the two strangers were not strangers at all: Gee Way and Dallon Weekes.

They were the kind of people that Brendon knew all too much about without even ever speaking to, and really, that was just what friendship does to people, and he still hadn't quite decided whether that was good or bad yet.

They noticed him: it was only a matter of eventuality, of course, after all, Brendon had resorted to standing like a deer in the headlights right in the middle of the path, just staring at the two of them, and really he couldn't have been more obvious if he was screaming at them that he was staring at them and assessing their value and worth as people.

Dallon was the first to notice: looking up from a few metres away, and muttering something to Gee, before quickening his pace, leaving the older of the two to follow behind him.

"Brendon?" Dallon addressed him as Gee made his way to Dallon's side: the younger all bright eyes and smiles, and Brendon didn't believe it for one fucking minute. "I was at Patrick's party- I-"

"I know who you are." Brendon finished for him, turning to Gee, and only nodding in his direction. "I know who you are too: I know Frank Iero, of course I do." And Gee couldn't help but blush a little at that. "God, you really fucked up there, didn't you?"

"Brendon-" Dallon interrupted, his eyes widening like he was almost genuinely astounded by the fact that Brendon Urie was gutsy enough to make such a sarcastic and mildly offensive remark. "You can't talk- you cheated, and- you were an asshole."

"I know." Brendon shrugged it off, pulling his gaze back to Gee. "Talk to Frank, for fuck's sake: you don't have to start boning him again, but just say hello - see if he's alright, because he's not and he's struggling without you, because he's a fucking idiot and he still loves you."

"He's fine." Gee insisted: it becoming more of a matter of ignorance than naivety at this point, and despite the twenty five year old's stubborn nature, it was undeniable, even to him.

"He's not." Dallon spoke up - not even sure as to why he was bothering, but he was, and perhaps he could only hope that Brendon would stop cutting him down with his words in appreciation of such a gesture. "I watched him puke his guts up into a sink at the party on Saturday-"

"What? Were you joining him, because you know what I told you- you know, I don't want you to do that." Gee insisted, shaking his head, and doing just about anything to divert the topic of conversation from Frank to Dallon: Dallon wasn't even important here - Gee would probably have rather discussed his mother's knitting techniques right then.

"You know I don't want you to drink, so shut the fuck up and stop being a hypocrite-" Dallon snapped back at him, momentarily forgetting that Brendon was even there, and blushing like hell as he met Brendon's gaze: raised eyebrows and narrowed eyes - he was slowly piecing this together.

"There's more to this than people think, isn't there?" Brendon directed that question at Dallon, and with a stern tone that ensured Dallon wasn't going to twist his words and throw them right back at him.

"No, not really. Everything's just a face value with relationships that are fucked up: the mess is always visible, you know that."

"No, not quite. There's so much more to Ryan, Sarah, and I, and I'm not just saying that in my defence - you can ask Sarah, but I seriously suggest you come to accept that perfect little Gee and Frankie didn't just casually fall out, because you love him, Gee, and now it's all hatred and lies and sleeping with everyone you know-"

"I've just slept with Dallon-"

"Sure, you have." Brendon wasn't wrong, and Bert McCracken was the living proof of that.

"There's more to this." Dallon finally came to admit, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his sneaker. "There is."

"I know." Brendon sighed out, passing them a smile, before turning back to make his way back home: too much air, too much socialising, and too much clarity - goddamn it, Brendon was even starting to think straight - that certainly hadn't helped last time.

"Ryan still loves you, but you fucked up big time." Dallon added as Brendon started to walk away, and for what purpose, he would never come to understand. "There's more to that, though: Patrick knows. Patrick knows everything."

"I know."

-

And it's Brendon's bedroom again: the same awkward, loathsome ordeal, but the creator of the situation was different this time, and really, Kara had begun to wonder just as to how Brendon had suddenly acquired all of these 'friends' who insisted upon visiting him in person on such a regular basis.

Specifically, the person stood awkwardly, having closed Brendon's bedroom door behind them this time was Dallon.

"There's more to it." He spoke aloud before Brendon could even began to mutter a sarcastic comment in relation to his presence: Brendon hardly knew Dallon, and therefore was just a little slow on the front of coming up with something snappy and personal that was ensure that Dallon was sitting uncomfortably for the remainder of their 'encounter'.

"I know." Brendon settled for the first response that came into his head, and Dallon didn't seem to mind: making his way over to sit beside Brendon on his bed before continuing their conversation, well, if you could really call this a conversation - that was questionable.

"Did you ask Patrick about Ryan?" Dallon asked, not knowing Brendon well enough to know that there wasn't a single chance in hell that he would have actually accomplished something with only twenty four hours to motivate himself in.

"No." He shook his head, neglecting any further explanation, as he found no need for it - it was only Dallon, after all.

"Okay." Dallon sighed out, not anticipating that Brendon wouldn't be actively trying everything to get Ryan back.

"I may be an asshole, but at least I'm not pathetic." And Brendon couldn't help but feel like he was trying more to convince himself of that fact, as opposed to simply conveying it to Dallon with that air of arrogance that he was well accustomed to hiding behind.

Dallon shrugged, raising his eyebrows a little: wanting to say more, but deciding against it, because this was Brendon, and it was nothing short of the worst idea he'd ever had. "Why did you decide to date Sarah?"

Brendon was just a little stumped at first: never having expected Dallon to grow the guts to be quite so direct, but it became rather apparent that Brendon was wrong, and god, Brendon didn't like being wrong. "Because she was cute and I liked her."

"There's more to it than that. We all think lots of people are cute, but there's a difference between thinking someone's cute and fucking them. Why did you act upon those feelings, Brendon?" And by now, Dallon was asking questions that Brendon wasn't even sure he actually knew the answers to.

"I don't know, I just... Ryan... Ryan didn't... nothing seemed to matter, it felt like that whatever I do, it's not going to matter and no one's going to care. Ryan was ignoring me and things were happening at home." And Brendon promised himself that he definitely wouldn't let every secret slip for the second time, especially to someone he barely knew: he was so close to Sarah that it was excusable, perhaps even acceptable, but it was unlikely.

"Gee's an alcoholic." Dallon didn't even quite know as to how the words had just sprung from his lips with such a lack of warning, but it was certainly far too late to regret it now. "He's fucking his life up and it's spiralling out of control, and without Frank, there's no one to stop him, because no matter what he seems to have tricked himself into thinking, I'm not Frank, and I never will be."

"Tell Frank about what he's doing?" Brendon suggested, raising one eyebrow as he listened with far too much interest than he would have preferred to have, but at the very least, the subject of conversation wasn't solely focused on his biggest mistakes and most spectacular fuckups: almost like a 'highlight' reel - one made by someone with a particularly sick and twisted sense of humour, though.

"Frank's fucked up as well, and I doubt he'd ever even consider listening to me. But Gee's going to end up killing himself like this, because Bert doesn't give a shit, and he's really not okay - there's nothing left of him: it's just alcohol and fucking everyone he can get his hands on, and he's fucking convinced that he hates Frank as well, and Frank hates me for spending so much time with him, but for the most part, I'm only trying to stop him killing himself here-"

"Fuck." And for the first time, Brendon actually cared more than a little about problems that didn't directly relate to either him or Ryan. "You can just- you need... tell someone."

"Who?"

"Tell Ryan: he always knows what to do and he always cares."

And with that, Dallon got up, smiling just a little. "You're not quite so much of an asshole as you make yourself out to be, you know?"

"I disagree." Brendon protested, being far too proud of his own arrogance.

"You can disagree all you like: I know how nice you can be, but don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Long live your asshole reputation, not that I'm all that sure as to why you'd ever want it in the first place."

"I like my own company."

"You can't live inside your own head forever, sure, you can love yourself, but you can't marry yourself: you can be your own best friend, but you'll always feel just as alone."

-

Gabe Saporta had almost seemed to disappear off the face of the earth for the past few months, having been Pete Wentz's boyfriend for about the space of five minutes, and now, now he was just that guy: mildly popular, yet largely unimportant, but, of course, there was always more to things like that.

Gabe hadn't been nearly as affected by Pete's death as Patrick had been, but he most certainly cared: Pete was a nice guy and he didn't deserve that, but there was very little Gabe could do - hell, he was either hated or a stranger to Pete's friends, and he was just that guy who put flowers on Pete's grave every few weeks, and still no one knew who he really was.

Patrick spent a lot of time at Pete's grave, but the two had never exchanged a word, and Gabe later learned that it was down to the fact that Patrick hadn't spoke for quite a while after Pete's death, but still, Gabe didn't know Patrick, not really, and the same went for all of the other visitors to Pete's grave.

Which was exactly what had him quite so surprised when someone actually addressed him by his name.

Gabe wasn't planning to stay for long: just enough time to leave flowers, and think about Pete for a minute or two: this was his apology, because he'd fucked up with Pete - things hadn't gone as they should have, and now it was too late, and Gabe was on a mission to prove that he cared, even if no one was watching.

"You're Gabe right?" 

In fact, the teenager jumped at the sound of his name, spinning on his heels to see another boy: brown hair, brown eyes - familiar yet someone he'd never seen before, at least not here.

Gabe nodded in response: speechless as he struggled to put a name to the face before him.

"I'm Brendon." The boy added, stepping forward to stand beside Gabe: the two facing Pete's grave in nothing more than silence for a good few minutes.

"You don't usually come here." Gabe highlighted the obvious, and as nothing more than a mere conversation starter.

"And you do?" Brendon couldn't help but say that such knowledge surprised him, but Gabe nodded in confirmation. "I swear you dated for two weeks at most."

"It was complicated, and fucked up, and messy, and everything I shouldn't have wanted, but did, and it didn't end how I wanted to, and there was never a chance for an apology, and now I put flowers on his grave all too often, and think about him more than I should, but I'm not sad, because I'm not allowed to be sad. I didn't know him enough to be sad. Hell, none of his friends know me or like me - I'm just that guy he dated once, but really, there's a lot that happened between us that no one knows, and really - it mattered, we mattered: I loved him, even if I was terrible at showing it, and even worse at admitting it, and seemingly terrible at getting over it."

"It's okay - we all fuck up." Brendon somehow found himself smiling, and god, this was fucked up, and if Pete Wentz was looking down on him right now, he'd probably be laughing. "We're human after all."

"But what if I'm secretly part lizard?" Gabe asked, grinning a little.

"Then, I'd be a little freaked out to say the least." Brendon admitted: unsure as to how the hell he was supposed to react.

"But would you keep my lizard secret?"

Brendon raised his eyebrows momentarily. "Sure."

-

Being friends with Gabe Saporta was certainly a new thing for Brendon. In fact, being friends with anyone other than Ryan Ross was nothing more than downright alien to him, and hell, now he wasn't even friends with Ryan anymore.

School was different: having someone to sit with and a whole new world of other people - Gabe's friends, and Brendon was fucking shell-shocked to see that the majority of them weren't just enormous douchebags, and there was just something about the stares and glares from the people he once knew as friends, but now loathed him that made it all worthwhile.

But the fact was that Brendon wasn’t just doing this to get back at Ryan, or anyone, Brendon was friends with Gabe because he wanted to be: the guy made stupid ass lizard jokes and had a far bigger heart than anyone would ever expect, and that had most certainly taken Brendon by surprise.

But still, that wasn't to say that the glares and stares and attention weren’t doing wonders for Brendon's ego.

That didn't matter right now, though, and it never should have done in the first place, because Brendon was done with Gabe's friends and small talk and extended smiles, because that was nothing compared to just sitting behind the art block with Gabe, who was more than happy to just watch Brendon smoke like it meant nothing, but still everything: Brendon was everything, and the cigarette in his hand - temporarily, and in the scheme of things, worth absolutely nothing at all.

Surely that was a flawed perspective: only finding value in permanent things, because nothing lasts forever, and this moment of genuine smiles and cigarette smoke and the best friendship Brendon had felt in far too long, this was all temporary, but there wasn't a single doubt in either Gabe or Brendon's heads that it didn't matter.

"Do you smoke a lot?" Gabe asked: the first real question, the first 'important' subject of conversation - everything before had been stupid jokes and Gabe laughing at Brendon's fucking stupid emo turd fringe.

"I guess." Brendon shrugged it off, blushing a little as he did so: Gabe wasn't the type to lecture him on this shit, but still, he felt awkward around the subject, much as he felt awkward when it came to even admitting to himself that he was addicted, because really, this wasn’t casual - nicotine was clarity, and it was important, and it certainly didn't last forever.

But then again, things are what you make of them, and this question and this answer could be everything or could mean absolutely nothing at all, and it was all up to the way the chemicals reacted in Brendon's head.

"Ryan didn't like that I smoked - he didn't like the fact that it could kill me, but I think he just didn't like admitting to himself that we're all going to die someday, no matter how hard we try to prevent it."

"Yeah, we've got to make the most of what we've got." Gabe smiled at him, shuffling closer to Brendon in a totally homosexual manner, and thankfully there was no one around ensuring that a 'no homo' had to follow his every action: Brendon was different, of course, being Brendon. "Smoke all you like."

"Mhmm..." Brendon nodded, taking a drag of his cigarette: almost like a toast to Gabe's words. "When you were a kid did you ever imagine yourself as a teenager, and didn't you just think that it'd be the best thing ever, like you'd think you'd have like four trillion friends and go to parties every night and you'd be so damn happy and it'd be like all the movies and all the clichés, but it's not like that, and I don't even feel disappointed, I just feel stupid."

Gabe nodded, shrugging a little a few seconds later. "They're movies, man, they're not supposed to be real: if high school is supposed to be fun, then where the fuck is Batman, huh? But your life doesn't have to be the sob story cliché that you're telling to people in bars aged twenty five with no hopes and no job - fucking smile, Urie, make the most of it. Tell me, I want to grant you a wish, I want to make you happy, and we'll do the same for me, and today will be a good day and you'll stop caring so much about those people that hate you."

"Is it really that obvious?" Brendon exclaimed, shaking his head, and in consequence, tapping cigarette ash onto his knee, and jumping a little, before brushing it off.

"You keep staring, so yeah." Gabe shook his head, raising his eyes at Brendon's puzzled expression. "Anyway, make a wish, Urie?"

"And what are you? My fairy godmother?" Brendon retorted, snorting a little, and really, he preferred it when Gabe was making fun of his sneakers and how he tied his laces 'wrong'.

"Yes, Cinderella, you will go to the ball!" Gabe exclaimed, waving his finger at Brendon like it was a magic wand or something.

"I'd rather not." Brendon raised his eyebrows a little, taking a drag of his cigarette. "I don't know what I want, honestly. I thought all I wanted was Ryan back, but it seems silly that my whole life should revolve around one person who just hates me. Tell me what I want, fairy godmother."

"That's not how it fucking works, asshole." Gabe shook his head like Brendon was an utter idiot. "Do you know that tunnel on that road across town? People say you can sit on the curb and the cars rush by so fast that you're almost blown away. That sounds cool as hell-"

"Sounds like a death wish." Brendon blinked at Gabe like he couldn't quite believe just what he was saying.

"Could say the same about the cigarettes, but I'm not going to. Come on, Urie, where are your balls?" Gabe grinned at him, resting his head on Brendon's shoulder.

"I don't know, Ryan probably cut them off and has them locked away in a cupboard somewhere."

"Actually, I can think of what you're wishing for."

"Is that so?" Brendon raised his eyebrows at that: skeptic as ever.

"You just want to get over Ryan - that's clear." Brendon nodded, because, of course, Gabe was right. "I can help you - I am your magic fairy godmother after all."

"I thought you were half lizard?"

"Fairy godmothers can be half lizard - don't be a judgemental bitch." Gabe grinned, getting up as Brendon finished his cigarette. "Come on, Urie."

"What?" Brendon asked, grinning in confusion, but smiling nonetheless, because Gabe was the first person to make him smile in far too long, and now it seemed that Brendon was making up for a life of bittersweet in the smiles of right now.

"I'm going to grant some wishes: you can get over Ryan and I'm going to nearly die in a tunnel across town, because I can."

"And how the hell do you expect that I'm going to just get over him? It's not instant. You can't really do magic." Brendon narrowed his eyes at Gabe, almost like he was expecting him to just pull a magic wand out of his butt or something.

"It'll take time, Bren, everything does, but we can start right now."

"How?"

And the answer to Brendon's question didn't come in the form of words, but in a kiss against his lips, and at first, Brendon was panicking, but then he thought 'fuck it', and kissed Gabe the hell back, because this matter and he wanted it to.

But, of course, the two were far too caught up in one another to notice the figure watching them from afar: Patrick, but this didn't matter - it wasn’t even like Patrick Stump needed to see them kiss to know it'd happened: he'd be able to read the signs for days later, and in the matter of keeping secrets from Ryan, Brendon had no hope.

No hope whatsoever.

-


	32. It's Totally A Butt Dial

"Yes mum, I freaking love Jesus. Never going to love another man as much as I love Jesus... not that I'd ever love men ever because wow what? Me, William Beckett, a homosexual? Ridiculous. But yeah, Jesus is my lord and saviour 2k15."

"Yeah, she's never going to buy that." Travie had barely even looked up from the slightly questionable issue of Gossip Girl that he'd found under William's bed a few minutes ago, when he was, of course, totally listening to the dude ramble on about his strikingly important first world problems, and not, well, reading Gossip Girl like eighteen year old guys just casually did.

"Yeah, how the fuck am I supposed to do this if I can't even pull off being a straight dude for more than like ten seconds - how the hell do you do this?" He gave up, joining Travie on the bed, which really wasn't helping him practice his heterosexuality at all, but he was far more concerned with the issue of Gossip Girl Travie was reading than fucking him - not that he'd be all that opposed to the latter of the two ideas, just not now.

"I would say, just don't make any outward comments on sexuality, just make everything strictly platonic, pretend you don't have feelings at all for an evening, but then again, you do practically radiate homosexuality so, maybe there is no hope for you at all." Travie closed the issue of Gossip Girl, handing it to William with raised eyebrows. "I'm not going to ask."

"Honestly, I don't even know." William blushed like hell as he lied through his teeth and stashed it back under his bed, because he totally didn't look at the beauty tips in there, ever. "Come on, asshole, you're supposed to be the expert on being straight."

"Yeah, but I've never had to deal with the issue of pretending I'm not gay, have I?" Travie rolled his eyes, leaning his head on his friend's shoulder and letting out a complacent sigh, because William was a fucking ridiculous little homosexual man, but he was his best friend nonetheless.

"True, but who else am I supposed to go to about this? The fucking school counsellor, yeah? No. I doubt Catholic school will really appreciate that - they'll probably burn me at the stake or something."

"Maybe you're overreacting just a little there-"

"Maybe I'm not - you're straight, don't tell me what it's like to be so gay you can't even breathe when a hot guy walks into the room." William moaned, overreacting just a little, but whatever, he was having a lot of gay problems right now, and Travie was being quite the unsupporting heterosexual right now. "I wish I had a boyfriend I could make out with right now and like subdue the homosexual urges for a while, before I like turn into Louie Spence at my cousin's wedding."

"Yeah, I may be a straight boy, but even I know that there's a big difference between homosexuality and lycanthropy." Travie gave the seventeen year old a little shove: friendly and far too heterosexual for William's liking, but still not heterosexual enough.

"Not necessarily - you can get gay werewolves, come on, don't be such a homophobe-"

"Gay werewolves." Travie only stared wide eyed at his best friend as he struggled to figure out just what horrible concoction of drugs he had to be on right now.

"Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of Twilight I would read - screw Bella, I want some Jacob on Edward action." William fell onto his back, half giggling, half sobbing, as Travie stared in concern as he questioned whether he should bother the emergency services with the possible seizure that his best friend might be having.

"Can you please stop having a seizure on my bed - it's annoying." Travie sighed out, rolling his eyes at William, who promptly stopped, pouting like hell. "Okay, I'm glad you weren't actually dying because then I really would have looked like an asshole."

"You are an asshole, stop being in denial: I came out as gay, so you can come out as the world's biggest asshole. Mhmm... I can see why we're friends - I love asshole and you are an asshole."

"You know what? How about you stop being such a little prick about this and actually grow the balls to just come out to your mum and then you're not going to have to get that girl from biology to be your fake date, and you're not going to have to do her homework in return: just tell your mum and bring some guy as your date, okay?" William blinked at Travie like he'd told him to go jump off a cliff or something. "This would literally solve all of your problems."

"Yeah, there are two major flaws in your plan there, asshole." William shook his head in Travie's direction as he sat back up, leaning into his best friend like the total fucking gaylord he was. "My mum's totally going to be like 'Jesus is the only man you need in your life, why would you ever need to be fucked by a dude when Jesus is always inside you- hey, maybe I should just date Jesus- Craigslist! I'm going to make an ad for a guy called Jesus to come and be my date for the wedding, and I can be like hey, mum I love Jesus and then fucking make out with the guy-"

"Yeah, maybe dating random guys off Craigslist isn't the best idea- but that's pretty funny, I guess. Couldn't you just get some guy that would be willing to be your date for the evening who we know isn't some sort of convinced murderer to pretend his name's Jesus so you can like come out to your mum in what is the best way I've ever heard, because okay, yeah, you're an idiot, but that's so ridiculous that it's brilliant."

"But, Travie, where are you going to get a guy who'll be my date and pretend his name's Jesus for me?" William whined, leaning on his best friend like he was a fucking sofa, and really, Travie was just about used to it by now.

"People will do a lot for ten dollars." Travie shrugged, pulling out his phone and looking for the person who'd be the most likely to be drunk enough to agree to anything right now.

"Ughh... can you not get an actual gay guy that I can like date for real afterwards, because I am not appreciating my lack of love life right now-"

"Shut the hell up, I'm not your fucking matchmaker, Beckett, I'm finding you a guy who'll kiss you and pretend his name's Jesus for one night but that's it - I'm not finding you a boyfriend."

"People will do a lot for ten dollars." He grinned, pulling a ten dollar bill out of his pocket and offering it to his best friend.

-

Frank had spent an awful lot of time with Jamia recently, and consequently he'd found himself spending a lot of time following his favourite all girl punk band around, and more often that not found himself sat on some girl he barely knew's sofa as he drank their parent's beer and watched the band play.

Basically, Frank was a groupie.

A shit, homosexual groupie for a band of lesbians (minus Sarah, but when alcohol was involved things changed a little).

But whatever, Frank was happy and the beer was pretty good and at the very least this was probably the first week in his life where he hadn't been bombarded with the continuous stressful cycle of life problems that all of his friends seemed to be somehow miraculously experiencing on a day to day basis regardless of well logic and sanity, but whatever, at least he wasn't thinking about Gee as he made his way into Lindsey’s house with Jamia.

Lindsey's house was bigger, and always available for practice, but of course the only downside was in the fact that Lindsey didn't live with her parents and therefore Frank had to physically beg her for beer and pull on his best 'I care about your music and don't actually just love taking advantage of this free supply of alcohol' smile and just hope for the best, and that usually yielded inconsistent and often disappointing results.

Frank liked Jamia's house better: her parents had a lot more beer and they seemed to never even notice that it had gone missing, and then again, Jamia really knew why he was tagging along recently and didn't tend to give much of a shit as long as he was tipsy enough to keep smiling like an idiot.

And really, that was friendship at its finest.

Of course, that kind of euphoria couldn't last forever, and it seemed as if Lindsey Ballato had personally made it her one goal in life to fuck up his life and everything he was striving to achieve with this growing alcohol addiction, and no, it wasn't even that she'd denied him any alcohol, fuck, they'd never even gotten that far.

Jamia had practically dragged him inside, muttering something about sedatives that Frank probably should have paid more attention to, only for the two of them to stop dead in their tracks as they came to realise that this wasn't band practice at all, and Lindsey Ballato was a dirty fucking lying bitch with an unstoppable motherly desire to do what was right for her friends, even if it ensured that they hated her with an angsty passion for like the next two weeks at a maximum.

"What the fuck?" It had soon become awfully apparent that Lindsey hadn't even thought to let Jamia in on her plan, and Frank couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with the amount of alcohol they were consuming and just what he could convince Jamia to tell him with the aid of a few drinks.

Lindsey only shrugged it off, leaving him to get up off the sofa and make eye contact with the two seventeen year olds: Frank in particular, of course.

"Gee." Frank shook his head firmly, making his way towards the door, only for Jamia to grab him by the hand and keep him grounded: communicating with Lindsey across the room somehow - damn those psychic lesbians.

"Frank- fuck, I-" And he was barely three syllables in before Frank was shaking his head firmly and glaring and wanting the beer he'd came here for, and an apology meant nothing, because this was fucked and they were fucked, and maybe for all of five minutes, Frank had thought he was okay and that he was over Gee, but it had soon become awfully clear that it really wasn't the case.

"Look, you're going to sort this shit out: you're both ruining your lives over this shit, and Gee's sorry, and he loves you, Frank, and Frank just being an angsty piece of shit who just needs to grow the fuck up and accept the fact that his boyfriend made a drunken mistake- okay, they slept together more than once, but I've spoke to Dallon, and- Jamia shut the fuck up- he's a nice guy, I promise. He means nothing, and he likes another guy, anyway-"

"Wait what?" And it appeared that Gee wasn't pulling off the apologetic ex-boyfriend act all that successfully. "My temporary emotional support boyfriend doesn't even like me?"

"Temporary emotional support boyfriend." Jamia repeated, shaking her head as she gave Frank a little shove in Gee's direction, before making her way to Lindsey's side. "Yeah, Frank's your permanent boyfriend, got that?"

Frank only shrugged, swaying a little on the spot as he glared at Jamia, because fuck, she was fucking everything up and Frank just wanted a beer. "Who does Dallon like?"

"Why the fuck does that matter?" Lindsey narrowed her eyes in Frank's direction.

"Just curious." Frank shrugged it off. "I bet it's Ryan, though: Ryan's single, Dallon's single, they're both emo trash with ex-boyfriends and sob stories. Makes sense, just saying."

"No." Gee shook his head firmly. "Spencer, definitely: those two are close as close and well Dallon thinks the fact that the guy can eat a shit ton of grapes is cute."

"Okay, point - when you love someone you think everything they do is cute, okay, well maybe not sometimes, like cheating on you, not cute, Gee." Frank bit his lip, shaking his head in Gee's direction, as Jamia and Lindsey slowed retreated into the kitchen, leaving the two together and just hoping for the best.

"So, you're saying you love me?" Gee smirked, raising his eyebrows a little.

Frank shook his head all too firmly: convincing himself more than anyone else. "No, I just want a drink. You're cute and I need to stop thinking about you and beer helps, I guess."

"Don't fucking do that." Gee snapped out a response almost immediately, catching Frank by surprise, to say the least. "Don't drink like that - it's bad and it's fucked up and, Frank- fuck... I... I... I fucked up like that, and this was before this was when we were still together and I started drinking and everything was downhill from there, and it was all drugs and drink and too much and then the things that happened when I was too intoxicated to remember them, and then I made the mistakes and everything fell apart, but the drink doesn't stop, and it's hard to admit it, but I guess, I'm an a- I'm an a- fuck, I can't say it- why, fuck- I managed to tell it to others, but just not you: I care what you think too much, I guess."

"So what's Dallon's deal?" Frank asked, biting down on his bottom lip and avoiding a direct response, keeping things awkward: for the best. "You're the sentimental type - you like the sob story and you like having your head full of someone else's shit and gossip, god, I know you do. You like secrets and mess."

"Not my secret to tell." Gee shrugged it off, finding discretion his best tactic here. 

"So, it's secret then? Pretty important then, I guess - it's usually just all about you, isn't it-"

"Frank-" Gee shook his head firmly. "You don't want me back, that's clear, but please, can we just try... as like friends?"

"Like fuck that's ever going to work." Frank rolled his eyes, shrugging away from the twenty five year old. "I either hate you or I'm desperately in love with you: it's a slap you or kiss you kind of thing."

"Then make your mind up - you've had your time, and really, come on, Frankie, if you really hated me, you'd be long gone out of this door, and you wouldn't need to drown it out with alcohol. Fucking make your mind up."

And so, everything clicked into place, and they did the obvious: Frank chose the logical path - how it was to be.

Frank Iero slapped Gee Way right across the face.

"Don't fucking tell me how I feel."

And to prove his point, Frank turned and made his way out of Lindsey's house, slamming the door behind him out of nothing but spite.

-

Ryan was, of course, just a little jealous of Joe and Patrick's friendship, and especially now that Patrick was talking, it had become blatantly obvious as to just how easily the two got along, but there never was a single doubt in Ryan's mind that Patrick valued him as a best friend, and that belief was only proven with the secret Patrick told Ryan: Joe out of the room and on the phone to Andy, who had apparently gotten lost on the way - something about Spencer falling into a bush and some old lady with a limp banana and some soggy bread.

"You're over Brendon now, aren't you?" Patrick thought it best to approach the subject with discretion, but really there was no discreet way around the blatantly obvious truth that he'd witnessed with his own eyes.

Ryan shrugged it off with an overly faked gesture of ignorance, blushing as he laughed it off, and leaving Patrick to bit down on his bottom lip as he forced himself not to make a rather questionable remark in response to Ryan's terrible lying skills. 

"Of course. I don't give a damn about him." Ryan finally thought it best to give a verbal response alongside his questionable 'I don't give a fuck' shoulder spasm that left Patrick with raised eyebrows and a lot that he couldn't quite let himself say. "Why?"

"I saw him kiss another guy the other day: pretty sure it's his new boyfriend or something, but well, I didn't go up to him and interview him on the spot but, there was definite kissing-" And really, Ryan was far too over Brendon to even let him finish his sentence, because Ryan was totally collected and totally over Brendon and totally fine being single.

"What the fuck? Sarah said he wanted me back-"

"You're talking to Sarah? You're talking to the girl he was cheating on you with?" Patrick was a little shocked, to say the least, but Ryan only shrugged it off, and for real this time.

"He cheated on her too. She's nice - you should meet her, you know. Anyway, she went and talked to Brendon about what had happened and she told me that he was going through some shit but he didn't say what, but she told me what he told her and I know- it's complicated: Brendon doesn't tell people about his problems, but this is to do with his family and his dad."

"Oh what's with his dad?" Patrick asked, wondering if he'd stepped over the line, but finding enough newfound confidence in regaining his voice to not even stop to care.

"His dad's dead, and it's complicated." Ryan let out a sigh: trying his best not to think about when they were together and Brendon had initially told him, and now how what was everything meant almost nothing at all. "So who was it that he kissed?"

"Gabe Saporta..." Patrick sighed out, biting down on his lip as he spoke: thinking of Pete as he did, because, fuck, he couldn't help it: Pete was everything and that everything would never quite fade away - by now, that was something Patrick was more than certain of. "He dated Pete for about a week or two before Pete and Mikey got together... when Pete was-"

"It's okay." Ryan forced an awkward kind of smile, grabbing Patrick's hand. "You don't have to. Look, I'll find out what the hell's going on here, don't you worry."

"I thought you said you were over him and don't care about him." Patrick raised his eyebrows a little, but Ryan only shrugged it off, once again.

"I can still hate him. Anyway, I'm doing it for Gabe's benefit, because chances are that he's going to fuck this guy over too: I'm just a fucking nice guy, Patrick." And before Patrick could respond, Joe had made his way back into the living room, pocketing his cellphone and shaking his head in disbelief.

"I'm pretty sure Spencer's drunk, and Andy's really not having fun trying to direct a grape eating manchild here, so they could be anywhere from five minutes to two hours." Joe announced, laughing a little: utterly unaware to what conversation had occurred in the few minutes he'd been on the phone to a rather regretful and mildly pissed off Andy Hurley.

"What about Dallon? Is he coming? You were going to talk to him, weren't you?" Patrick piped up, striking Ryan with confusion and an unstoppable interest in matters that really weren't his business at all.

Joe shrugged, sighing out as his gaze hit the floor. "I called him - no response, left a message. I texted him - seen, no response. Who knows what's going on with Dallon."

"He's probably with Gee - they're apparently dating now." Ryan piped up, liking to pretend that he was totally involved in this conversation. "What were you going to talk to him about?"

"Uhh..." Joe blushed a little, looking at Patrick, who was just as useless as to whether he should tell Ryan or not.

"It's a secret, Ryan." Patrick added, seeing how things went from then on.

"I can keep secrets." Ryan clearly didn't quite get their point, but Joe had given in by now, and it was probably something to do with the draining of hope that the mental image of Spencer Smith falling into a bush brought him.

"Dallon's got anorexia."

"Bulimia." Patrick corrected him within seconds, causing Ryan to widen his eyes in disbelief. "Dallon's bulimic."

"Oh..." He trailed off: not quite sure what to make of that - not really knowing the guy at all.

"I suspected that something was up, but Patrick's like magic, and he just read it off him, I guess-" Joe didn't quite get time to finish his sentence as the doorbell rang, leaving him to roll his eyes and rush to open in: it was Spencer and Andy, of course - it wasn't like they had any other friends, well besides the other seven million gay emos in this town, but whatever.

"Andy says I can't be Jesus!" Spencer exclaimed, flopping onto the sofa and curling up into a ball: he was drunk, to say the least.

"Uhh... what?" Joe wasn't quite sure as to what he was supposed to make of that at all.

"I'm really not sure." Andy didn't particularly add much clarity to the situation, leaving all four pairs of eyes to fall upon Spencer, and expecting some kind of logical explanation, but really, it was more likely for milk to suddenly start flowing from Ryan's asshole.

"Yeah, well Travie wants me to be Jesus and I was like Andy can I be Jesus? And Andy was like no. And I cried so hard I fell into a bush and now he's going to get Gabe Saporta to do it, and I don't even like Gabe: he doesn't deserve to be Jesus."

And it soon became apparent that that was all the explanation they were getting.

"Travie called him at some point, asking him to pretend to be Jesus for ten dollars - I thought it best that he didn't do it." Andy added, turning to Joe, who was still utterly unconvinced by the whole ordeal.

"Hell, I'd be Jesus for ten dollars - I don't even know Travie, but tell him I'll be Jesus if he wants." Ryan offered, laughing it off, and pretending that he hadn't heard Gabe Saporta's name mentioned there.

"No!" Spencer exclaimed. "I'm Jesus."

-

"He hates me, okay, get over it." Gee's head was buried in his hands, his knees brought up to his chest as he curled up on the sofa: taking full advantage of Bert's absence - unexplained, but Gee really didn't care all that much right now - by inviting over emotional support in the form of Dallon and Mikey. Ray had tagged along with Mikey too, and really, that was definitely something that Gee would have been asking at least a billion questions about if he wasn't currently crying.

"Look, he's just Frank - he's a stubborn piece of shit, and okay, yeah, you did cheat on him..." Mikey trailed off, catching Dallon's gaze as he did so, and well, it was kind of awkward, to say the least. "But, he does love you, and he'll come around soon enough."

"Soon enough is just not good enough - fuck it, come on, just tell it to me straight: he hates me, doesn't he?"

"He doesn't." Dallon insisted, sitting down beside the twenty five year old and passing him the most pathetic smile anyone had ever seen, but whatever, fuck it, unlike Gee, Dallon was at least actually trying. "Get Jamia to talk to him: she's like... I don't know... magic... he just trusts her... it's kind of weird but if you get Jamia on your side then it's fucking easy, okay?"

"Yeah, but Jamia really secretly hates me and if Lindsey didn't exist then she probably would have murdered me and burned my body by now, and once for every time I've ever slightly upset Frank." Gee wasn't wrong, but really, it wasn't anything personal, it was just the fact that Jamia Nestor's tolerance towards the human race in general was very low indeed.

"Jamia hates everyone: get over it." Mikey rolled his eyes at his brother, grabbing Gee's hand and pulling him up onto his feet. "Look, she hates you, she hates me, she hates Dallon, and she probably hates Ray despite the fact that I don't think they've ever even had a conversation."

"She glared at me once." Ray piped up: not at all sure as to what the hell he was doing here - it was either something to do with Mikey being over attached to his new boyfriend or something about Ray drifting to the background recently, and by him being here, he was somehow more involved the soap opera esque dramas that occurred in his friends' life on an almost daily basis.

Somehow, Ray had pretty much avoided this fucked up drama thing - for the most part anyway, because really, the most shit he'd ever really been involved with was dating Mikey, and then again, that was more to do with Mikey than him, because well, they were only keeping it a secret because Mikey still felt guilty about Pete, and he goddamn knew that Patrick would slap him across the face if he ever found out that he'd moved on or even just coped with loss like a stable human being.

But whatever, Ray was there, and that was his contribution to Gee's cripplingly traumatic first world problems, and that was that - it wasn't exactly helpful, but he had tried, and that was what counted.

"Just get Lindsey to talk to Jamia." Mikey suggested, pulling on a smile, and just hoping that Gerard would follow suit and that he wouldn't have to provide emotional support for his asshole of a brother every five minutes for the rest of his life, because that was really not something that Mikey was prepared to do.

"Yeah, well, Lindsey organised this whole thing with Frank, and that fucked up - look, it's clear, he doesn't care about me. Get over it."

"I'm sorry, but I should get over it? You're the one crying about it - if you ready to just leave it at him hating you then that's that: he hates you, and you can go get yourself a new boyfriend - look here's one here." Mikey gestured to Dallon: overdoing it a little, well perhaps more than a little, and Ray couldn't help but cringe as his boyfriend spoke, and then as Gee glared at his brother like he would not hesitate to punch him at all.

"Go fuck yourself, Mikey. I swear to God, you can never just be nice to me, can you? You always have to fuck everything up don't you?" Gee had lost it completely, but at the very least, he'd refrained from punching his brother... yet.

"Me?" Mikey fucking laughed that off: his eyes widening in disbelief. "I'm not the one who cheated on my boyfriend, am I?"

"You cheated on Alicia, though, didn't you?" And Gee was taking this all too far, because he was just centimetres away from speaking about Pete, and that was a million miles too far, and with that, it'd be Mikey punching him first.

"Yeah, and you cheated on that boyfriend you had in high school." Mikey's comeback was mediocre at best, but whatever, he tried. 

"I was seventeen!"

"I am seventeen." Mikey snapped at his brother, bringing him down to reality all too quickly.

"Fuck. God, I- I-... he's only seventeen and I forget this, I really fucking do... it's different for him, isn't it?"

Mikey met his overdue realisation with nothing but spite. "Yeah. It is. Not everything's about you, Gee, and I'm sorry, but one day you're going to have to realise that." And with that Mikey stormed off: slamming the front door behind him, leaving Ray to give an apologetic little shrug as he turned back to Gee and Dallon.

"I'm sorry... he's... uhh... being weird- I... I'll talk to Frank for you." Ray stumbled over his words: feeling more than just a little awkward, and far more responsible for Mikey's actions than he should ever be.

"Thanks, Ray." Gee smiled at him, and he fucking smiled for real. "You're good for him, you know."

"What?" Ray almost choked and died at that, because, well, he was fucked. Gee only smiled in response, leaving Dallon wide eyed and just a little confused, because he really had not picked up on that, and he really hadn't expected it either, to say the least. "How did you-"

"He's my brother: I know him." Gee shrugged it off all too casually. "Go on, go after him before he does something fucking stupid, okay: make sure he's alright."

"And are you alright?" Ray asked, raising his eyebrows a little.

"I'll be alright, I guess." Gee shrugged it off, gesturing for Ray to leave, and eventually he did, leaving Dallon and Gee alone for the first time in a while, and really, Dallon fucking wanted to kiss Gee more than ever, but goddamn, all this talk about Frank somehow told him that maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

"You're not alright." Dallon told Gee what he already knew, and for nothing more than the sake of making awkward conversation to waste away time.

"Yeah... tell me something I don't know." Gee and Dallon sat down on the sofa: the older's head ending up resting on Dallon's shoulder, and the two stayed like that in silence for entirely too long, because like that, through gritted teeth and held breath, they could say they were okay.

-

"I make a good Jesus, don't you think?" Gabe grinned across the room at Brendon Urie, who was just a little confused by the whole ordeal, which may or may not have been down to the fact that he was far more occupied with his cellphone than anything Gabe had actually been saying for the past ten minutes.

"Uhmm..." Brendon's eyes widened a little in response: not quite sure as to what he was supposed to make of that at all.

"I'm going to dress up as Jesus for this kid at his cousin's wedding." Gabe replied all too fucking nonchalantly.

"Uhh... why?"

"Well, Travie McCoy's going to pay me like ten dollars for it so fuck it why not?" He shrugged it off, texting Travie back with a 'yes I will be the best jesus you have ever known'.

"Retaining your dignity, perhaps?" Brendon asked, shrugging it off as Gabe just fucking laughed at that.

"Dignity? What the fuck are you talking about, Urie?" Gabe shook his head rather violently. "Fuck dignity: dignity doesn't make me ten bucks richer, does it?"

"Fair point." Brendon shrugged, sitting up properly and pocketing his cellphone. "So, wait... by kid do you actually mean like an eight year old or someone four days younger and just a little short than you?"

"The second one. Kind of handy as well, seeing as I'm pretty much supposed to make out with him- like, fuck, Bren, this is great I get paid ten dollars to make out with some dude!" Of course, Brendon could see many issues with this, but he thought it better to conserve his energy and not bother to mention them.

"Does this have any kind of explanation: logical or not, whatsoever?" Brendon thought it best to at least try asking, not that he expected much in the first place, but whatever, he had time to kill and it gave him something to laugh at, at the very least.

"Well, picture this kid- you kind of don't have to him: him and Travie are like coming over in five minutes by the way - anyway, his name is William fucking Beckett and he is gay - gay as hell. Poor William's mum is stupid enough to think he's straight, and also just a tiny little bit homophobic, which is kind of awkward, but whatever, it's not like her son's a serial killer - get the fuck over it. Anyway, William has a cousin- I don't fucking know this cousin's name, let's call them fucking Janet okay, Janet's getting married and Mrs Beckett doesn't want her emo turdstain of a son to embarrass her by being forever alone at Janet's wedding, so she's like hey look here is girl that lives down the road who you also hate, but I don't care, go with her. Poor William is like no thanks mum, I like cock, but he has a great difficulty conveying said fact to his mother, and therefore enlists the help of Travie, his best friend, who rings up the gayest people he knows to try and convince them to help William for ten dollars, and I'm the first person to say yes."

"How many pills did you fucking take?" Brendon asked, eyes widening a little, but laughing it off eventually. "But seriously, how the fuck are you relevant to some kid coming out to his mum?"

"Oh, so yeah, I'm Jesus, remember? And he goes 'hey, mum, I love Jesus', and then I walk in and he's like 'this is my boyfriend Jesus' and then we make out.. in front of his mum- maybe just kiss... maybe just... hell, I'll figure that out when he comes over and I meet him-"

"Meet him? You mean you don't even know this guy-" Brendon exclaimed, only for the doorbell to cut him off and leaving him staring wide eyed as Gabe made his way to the front door to let them in.

"Hey, so this is Will." Travie announced as the three made their way back into the living room, leaving Brendon to fucking stare at William Beckett, because okay, Gabe wasn’t wrong about the fact that this guy practically radiated homosexuality.

"Hey." He blushed a little, smiling up at Gabe, and well, looking just a little short of breath, which was suspiciously homosexual, to say the least.

"Hey. I'm Gabe." Gabe returned the smile, turning back to Brendon. "This is Brendon, he's my friend, and we like kissed a few times the other day but it's totally whatever because he's too emotionally attached to his ex-boyfriend to date me right now, so I'm like one hundred percent single."

Brendon glared up at Gabe. "You're not being very discreet, are you?" It was just a little harsh, but for that, Brendon reckoned he deserved it.

Travie fucking lost with laughter at that, leaving William and Gabe to blush until their cheeks got so flushed and hot that they melted the rest of the features off their faces, which would be problematic, because then they couldn't kiss in front of William's mum, and Gabe couldn't get ten dollars.

"So when's the wedding?" Brendon asked, not exactly making the best choice of words, judging by the widened eyes and tomato faces in front of him. "Your cousin's wedding, but- hey, I'm pretty sure you two could get married there if you really wanted to as well."

"Shut the fuck up, Bren, why would we do that?" Gabe shook his head firmly at Brendon: totally failing at just playing this off, but whatever, Brendon gave him an A for effort at the very least, and probably a gold star as well.

"It's in like a week." William finally answered, still more than just a little flustered, and mainly due to the fact that he was really struggling to breathe right now, and maybe, just maybe, that had a lot more to do with Gabe Saporta than he'd ever care to admit.

"Really? You only just met-" Travie joined in on the awkward marriage jokes, gaining an absolute fucking death glare from William in response.

"Seriously though, can I be your best man?" Brendon asked, laughing his fucking head off at the two of them, and really, Gabe was just about four seconds away from slapping him right across the face.

"You can go the fuck to hell-" 

Gabe retort was soon cut off as Brendon's ringtone went off, causing the seventeen year old to pull out his cellphone and practically have a heart attack as he read the contact name displayed on screen.

Ryan.

-


	33. The Gayest Thing Brendon Urie Had Said That Week

The rather recent friendship between Brendon Urie and Dallon Weekes was both unexpected and unconventional: at first, it was just them insulting one another, but as they found themselves talking on a far more frequent basis, and actually talking as opposed to just arguing, they found themselves on the subject of Gee Way, and then, the dreaded Ryan Ross.

It had totally been a butt dial, and Ryan was really not happy to hear Brendon's voice again, and Brendon was really not happy to hear him scream down the phoneline about limp bananas and soggy bread, which was a little questionable, to say the least.

And let's just say that Brendon let just a little more slip with Dallon than he'd ever care to admit.

Perhaps it was just weakness and loneliness, because admittedly, he hadn't spoke to Sarah since she'd came over that one time, and Brendon's head was starting spin whenever he thought about Ryan and Sarah and just how he'd screwed everything up the ass quite so fucking spectacularly, because really, he hadn't half assed this one - he really hadn't at all.

And with Gabe Saporta preoccupied with being Jesus the gay supporter at William Beckett's cousin's wedding - by planning the ordeal and totally not just wasting all his time awkwardly flirting with William, as he continued to be utter reluctant when it even came to admitting just how gay he was for the guy, Brendon found himself without Gabe's house to spend his Friday night in.

Because, fuck, Brendon did not want to be home when his mum's boyfriend was, he found himself sat up in the attic of Dallon Weekes' house: it was Dallon's bedroom... he hadn't like drugged him and kidnapped him and locked him up in there or something.

It was weird to say the least: Brendon wasn't really one for being nice and making friends, but Dallon was okay, or at least he filled Gabe's position perfectly for now, and he did a pretty good job of distracting Brendon from the voice inside that was screaming legion after legion of ridiculous assumptions as to why Gabe had neglected all of his text messages today.

And well, that voice spoke more to poke and jab at insecurities than of the truth and the fact that Gabe was far too preoccupied with trying not to get hard in the presence of William Beckett, because that would be an awkward situation, to say the least.

Speaking of awkward situations: Brendon Urie's fucking existence, because Dallon had gone downstairs to go to the bathroom and go piss or something, and stupidly left his phone upstairs... and the screen just happened to light up with a message from Joe asking where he was and what had happened to their plans.

And god, Brendon was not the guy who deserved to be hung out with in favour of blowing off your friends (not in that way) and pre-organised plans. He thought best to just bury the thought in the back of his head and pretend that he'd never even seen the message, but as Dallon returned - he just couldn't.

"Your phone." Brendon wasn't even discreet about it, holding out Dallon's phone to him as he entered the room. "I... uhh... the message popped and I... why are you ignoring your friends... for me of all people?"

Dallon remained silent for entirely too long afterwards, blushing a little, as he pocketed his cellphone and sat down beside Brendon, as he wondered just which version of the truth would serve him best right now. "Joe know something about me that I don't want him to, and I know he's going to confront me about it the next time I see him... so I've been avoiding it, because I lie all the time, but Joe... he doesn't take bullshit, and I can't lie to his face when he already knows the truth."

"How do you know this?" Brendon couldn't help but ask: overly curious as to just what this secret was, but knowing that when Dallon began to share his secrets, Brendon would most likely have to return the favour, and well, Brendon had made that mistake once already.

"Spencer will tell you anything when he's drunk- in fact, you don't even have to ask, he just blurts it out at you. Spencer doesn't know what the secret is, though, Joe hasn't told him that or he would have told me, but really, I have one big secret that Joe was always suspicious of from the start, so it's pretty obvious as to what he's referring to here."

"How bad is the secret on a scale of one to ten?" Brendon wasn't exactly the best person at providing friendly support and comfort, but Dallon had chosen him over his friends, so he was fucking stuck with him now - whether he liked it or not.

"Eleven... thousand." And Dallon didn't even think he was exaggerating here.

"Oh." Brendon didn't quite know how to respond to that, well, he just damn wanted to ask Dallon what the secret was, but the experience of having his life ruined completely had rather recently given him the gift of discretion, and knowing when not to be such a blunt asshole.

"It's not a 'personal' kind of thing, like an embarrassing thing... it's just a messed up thing that is part of me that I can't control and have to hide from everybody, but people find out, and I- I can't... I can't deal with that, because I can deal with what will happen from then on: people don't understand it... I..."

"It's okay." Brendon sighed out, leaning into Dallon's side a little, in a totally friendly, heterosexual way, because two homosexuals sitting really close and being really close? Gay? No, of course not! No homo.

Well, Brendon was technically bi, so he was only half-homo, and therefore protected from his homosexual sins slightly more than Dallon, the full homo, was.

"It's not." Dallon promised him, his words catching in his throat a little, and really, he was far too close to crying, and fuck, he did not want to cry in front of someone like Brendon Urie - he really did not.

The two jumped a little as Dallon's cellphone vibrated in his pocket, and reluctantly he pulled it out: more messages from Joe appearing on his lock screen, and from where he was sat, Brendon just couldn't help but read them over his shoulder.

And it seemed that if Joe couldn't confront him in person, then he'd do it over text message.

I know about your eating disorder.

And from the moment Dallon read the text: he knew Brendon had too.

They sat in a frozen, shocked silence for far too long, and as Joe's messages went with no response, he began to call Dallon, who jumped back into life in response: throwing his phone across the room and onto his bed, muttering a half-hearted "fuck" under his breath.

"You're not fat." Brendon finally spoke: several minutes after Dallon had cursed, and it caught them both by surprise. "I don't get why you... you... you're not fat... you're not ugly... you're beautiful, and you're a great guy, Dallon... I..."

"Remember when you told me I was a pathetic fucking whore-"

"I didn't mean it." Brendon protested: all the blood rushing to his head as guilt caught him right by surprise. "I just insulted you for the sake of it, because... well... because I'm an insecure asshole - that's how it works..."

"I know... not about you being an asshole: I disagree, but... yeah... I just... you're supposed to hate me... and you don't, and you're not being weird and still you don't hate me... and I... I'm surprised and I'm scared. I know I was right: you're far less of an asshole than you make yourself out to be."

"Only to you."

And that was most definitely the gayest thing Brendon Urie had said that week.

-

The whole encounter with Gee had definitely messed Frank up, and by that, it messed him up more than he was before, and he declared some sort of passive aggressive hatred towards both Jamia and Lindsey: the former of the two having neither the patience nor compassion to actually bother with Frank anymore, and in consequence, leaving the seventeen year old very, very alone indeed.

But of course, Frank knew exactly who to go to: the only other person he knew who hated their ex-boyfriend (kind of maybe, most of the time - they were supposed to but it all got screwed up in their head) as much as Frank did, was of course, Ryan Ross, who was still spent up about Brendon, despite what he said, and by now Sarah had gotten over Brendon for the most part, and had focused mainly on her band and her friends, and deleting Brendon from her life completely.

It was easier for Sarah, of course, not by emotional terms, but within the fact that Sarah lived in a separate little bubble away from Brendon: she went to a different school and she had a different circle of friends, and for her, it was really very easy just to cut Brendon off completely and avoid him and any thoughts relating to him for the most part.

That wasn't the case on Ryan's part, who had found himself overly involved with Brendon Urie from the very day he moved here and Pete Wentz had predicted their marriage, but now, they were nothing but the hateful exes cliché, and Pete, well Pete was dead.

And Ryan was left making every effort to avoid Brendon and his friends, and try not to listen to everything Patrick told him about Brendon: every guy he'd kissed and everything he'd done - Patrick knew too much and it was fucking with Ryan's head, but he hadn't the heart to tell Patrick to shut up, especially with what he'd been through, and with that the fact that Patrick talking was just about the best thing that had happened recently.

Frank was quite like Sarah in the bubble situation: Gee being older and distant and living an utterly detached life, but the emotional connection was far stronger, and Frank didn't need conscious decisions and reminders to ensure that he was thinking about Gee every moment of every fucking day.

Maybe he shouldn't have slapped him, but still, he was glad he did.

Maybe he shouldn't have reacted like that towards Jamia and Lindsey, who had really just tried their best to make him happy again, but he had, and maybe, just maybe, he was arrogant enough to say that he was glad that he had.

Of course, Frank would never go as far as to deny that Jamia was his best friend and that he didn't half fucking miss her, but it'd pass - everything passed with time: their friendship was stronger than this.

Everything passed.

Except the thing with Gee: that had been made clear to Frank that it was in fact, absolutely nothing but entirely permanent.

And sat in Ryan's backyard on a Thursday afternoon, Frank was still thinking about Gee, and Ryan was thinking about Brendon, and Patrick was talking, because he could, and he was nothing but encouraged to do so.

But in Bert McCracken's backyard on a Thursday afternoon, with a joint in his hand and a half empty bottle of vodka by his side, Gee Way was not.

Admittedly he was pretty fucking wasted, and his thoughts were utterly absent of the slightest remnants of coherence by this point: considering of simple fragmented phrases that were frequented by 'more beer', 'more drugs', and everyone's favourite: 'why the fuck am I alive?'.

Frank was unaware of Gee's thoughts, and the same went the opposite way around, and perhaps that was for the better, even if it didn't exactly provide Gee much of an advantage when it came to guessing how Frank felt about him: that slap still stung on his cheek, but he reckoned that he deserved it nonetheless.

"Stop thinking about Brendon." Patrick's words made both Frank and Ryan jump, of course, only the latter being guilty of Patrick's accusation, but Frank felt as if the situation applied very much to him with Gee.

"Sorry." Ryan apologised quickly: his cheeks a horrible red that said everything - he didn't want to care about Brendon, and he didn't want people to know that he still did, because Ryan Ross couldn't help but hate himself in regards to the blatant truth in the fact that he could never quite get over the guy who'd cheated on him for months on end.

"You know he-" Patrick began, but for the first time ever Ryan cut him off: his temper cut short by Patrick's prior accusation, and maybe, maybe Patrick had it coming, but Ryan wasn't exactly in the most tolerant of moods right now.

"I know he's kissed every damn guy he's even spoken to recently - whatever, he's over me and I'm pathetic: I know - don't rub it in my face, please." Ryan's tone was far harsher than he had intended, but Patrick did a pretty good job of masking his offense. "Sorry... I..."

"It's okay." Patrick smiled at him in reassurance, and it was far too good to look faked, and really, chances were that no one besides Patrick himself really knew quite how he felt on the inside. Patrick was just good with emotions and reading people's minds, and in turn, awfully good when it came to preventing the same from happening to him - it wasn't fair, but it wasn't exactly as if Patrick had some weird sexscandal that everyone was missing out on: he was just Patrick, and although sounding harsh, he never was intended to be the centre of attention - he simply wasn't that kind of person. For him, Pete's attention had been enough.

"It's hard." Ryan added after a moment or two of silence, and surprisingly, he wasn't talking about his dick here. "I still care about him and I shouldn't and it hurts - my heart fucking hurts. It isn't supposed to be like this, is it?"

"I feel the same about Gee." Frank found the words tumbling from his lips in confession before he could even consider stopping himself: it didn't really matter anyway, it wasn't as if Patrick hadn't read it off him the very moment he'd stepped with a ten metre radius of him anyway. "It sucks because he gave me a second chance recently but I just slapped him- I... I messed that up too."

"No, Frank, you should be the one giving him a second chance because he messed up, not you." Patrick spoke firmly, ensuring that Frank was absolutely certain of this fact. "It's questionable as to whether or not he deserves one though."

"Yeah... I... I... love him but he doesn't deserve that... I don't think so anyway, but I can't do anything about it, and it's a constant battle between my heart and my head, and it's just not going to fade away with time: I'm sure of that by now, and I... I'm stuck with this mess."

"Then you have to pick: at least you have a choice, Frank. It's simple for you: Gee isn't being an asshole and kissing and flirting with everyone else and ensuring that you fucking know about it. Sure, he slept with Dallon that time, and that was shitty, but I bet I couldn't count on my fingers the amount of people Brendon's screwed since I started dating him, and god, I don't want to."

-

The bruise was a constant reminder and it was another smack across the face whenever Gee met his reflection in the mirror, which in order to avoid the constant reminder of what Frank had done, he'd done his best to avoid.

Bert wasn't helping by pointing it out at least daily, but it was Bert, and Gee was used to that kind of shit from him, and really, he was just thankful that Bert hadn't chosen to remind him of the bruise on his face fucking hourly, because that would surely be hell.

The twenty five year old was sat in the kitchen with a cigarette in his hand a can of beer open on the table beside him: unaware as to quite where Bert was, but finding that he didn't particularly give all that much of a fuck, and in fact, much preferred it when the guy wasn't here to fuck his life up like this.

Because damn, it technically was Bert's fault, and although Gee knew that he was just blaming him for the sake of having someone to blame, it was still very technically his fault, because without him there would have been no party and there would have been no Dallon and there would have been no Bert to just spit it out in front of Frank, and in the first place, there would have been no one to sleep with first of all.

But no one knew about that one: Gee kept that secret as close to his chest as possible, and just continued to pray that Bert would never find a suitable opportunity in which to use it against him to fuck up his life for the millionth time.

And really, Gee couldn't help but be a little disappointed with the fact that Bert McCracken hadn't miraculously died within the past five minutes as he walked into the kitchen: Bob and Alicia behind him. The two had grown closer and closer recently, and Gee would even go as far as to make an assumption relating to romantic qualities of their relationship.

It was absolutely none of his business, though, so he continued to scowl at the whole damn world as he smoked his lungs away into a pit of ash and ember in his chest, and downed the beer to ignite the ash in his chest and start a fire where his heart used to be.

"Gee..." Bob was stoned, but then again that was to be taken just as granted as the fact that Gee was gay was. "Hellooo." Bob was harmless, though: he meant well, and he was nice, and his 'relationship' with Alicia was the proof of that - he didn't treat her badly and he didn't make her uncomfortable by making advances on her, even though he was in a position of power and in her respect - he could very easily manipulate and hurt her, but he didn't, because he cared.

That was the difference between Bert McCracken and Bob Bryar, but from then on with weed, porn, and Xbox, it was all the same, and Alicia looked as if she was about to stab her eyes out in regards to their conversation about weed, which then led into Bob trying to sell Bert something, and well, being far too stoned to get any kind of coherent sentence from his lips.

"You look like you're having a shitty time." Alicia noted, making her way over to Gee and sitting down on the chair beside him: raising her eyebrows at the can of beer beside him, and the three empty ones at his feet.

"Well, yeah- don't fucking mention the fucking bruise- I... I... don't... I-" And Gee was nervous and he hated it. Alicia was nice: Alicia Simmons was fucking lovely, if not a little anti-social at times, but still Gee felt like nothing to her.

"Please don't tell me Bert did that, because-" She lowered her tone, glancing over to Bob and Bert, who were both far too involved in some shitty ass fuckboy conversation to even notice the fact that Alicia and Gee existed right now.

"He didn't." Gee assured her with a sincere, yet awkward smile. "It was Frank, but I deserved it... I was being an asshole, I'm still an asshole, I cheated on him and then I tried to be smart about getting him back, and I took him for granted, I assumed that he loved me unconditionally, but he's Frank Iero: he's a person, he's not just my boyfriend... well ex-boyfriend, and everything fucking sucks."

"No one deserves to be hurt, just saying, especially not physically, but yeah, that wasn't exactly the best move on your part." Alicia sighed out, glancing over at Bob, and seeing that he and Bert and had drifted into the hallway with their conversation. "I really don't like Bert, but Bob seems to like him, so... it's weird... Bob's a really nice guy, but-"

"He's naive at the best of times, and is generally just far to stoned to even figure out the definition of common sense." Gee finished for her, and Alicia sighed out, nodding a little. "What's the deal with you and him?"

"Huh?" And the bright red blush practically said it all.

"You and him... that's a thing... is it not?" Gee continued, holding her gaze with a certain degree of impatience.

"I don't know... I mean... age gap, and then... he's a sweet guy, and I... I don't know... we've never really discussed it, anyway, he's like my best and only friend, and I'm not going to chance fucking that up with some stupid possible relationship that will do nothing but fuck me up."

"Bob's not like Mikey." Gee added, raising his eyebrows a little at her, because he had a pretty good idea as to what he was getting at here.

"I'm not saying that- I... I... I don't know what I'm saying - it's not important, okay?" And Gerard felt himself nodding, and perhaps just out of his need to be polite. "So what are you going to do about Frank?"

"I have to just get over him and move on... I guess..." And he didn't sound convincing, to say the least.

"You guess?" Alicia raised her eyebrows at that. "From what I can see right now - that's not going to happen."

"I know."

"So, what are you going to do about that?" Alicia asked, just a little puzzled as to what exactly had really gone on here, because it wasn't making all that much sense to her.

"What can I do?" Gee sighed out, shaking his head in defeat, but Alicia had other ideas entirely.

"Not give up? But it's your choice: I can try to help, or you can keep drinking the pain away until you die of liver failure."

And honestly, Gee would prefer the latter, but from the look in her eyes he reckoned that it wasn't really an option here.

-

Ray and Mikey's 'relationship' had most certainly developed recently, and yet, it was still nothing more than a dirty secret, and sometimes Ray couldn't help but feel as if he was nothing to Mikey: of course, this most certainly was not the case, but Ray's mind couldn't help but wonder sometimes.

But today, maybe today it was all okay, because Ray found himself in Mikey's bedroom wearing minimal clothing, and well, the same could be said for Mikey.

Mikey's parents were out, of course, and Mikey ensured to fully exploit this opportunity, because, well, he'd be stupid not to, of course, it'd be stupid to get caught, but Mikey was certain that that wasn't going to happen.

Or at least he hoped so, because really, Mikey didn't particularly fancy ending up like Gee: living with some fucking asshole of a stoner and fucking his life and relationships up because he just can't keep it in his damn pants.

Maybe Mikey Way shouldn't fuck Ray Toro.

Maybe it shouldn't be such a secret, but maybe he shouldn't have to be upset over Pete for the rest of his life: sure, Mikey missed him like hell, but moving on was inevitable, and he doubted that Pete would think any less of him for it - it was human, it was natural, and when Pete did what he did... well, he knew this was inevitable: people were going to react and things were going to happen. 

He most certainly wasn't irrelevant, even if he thought so far too much.

The whole damn world was the living proof of that: he wasn't forgotten and he never would be, but Mikey knew it probably was for the best not to think about his ex-boyfriend's death whilst making out with his current sort of boyfriend.

It was a 'relationship', because Mikey was a coward and Ray was too nice and far too lovestruck for his own good: the former being scared to define it, and the latter being scared to ask, and fear gets the better of everyone in the end.

But maybe, maybe right now in this very moment, it was just perfectly fine for neither of the two to truly know who they were, because maybe that wasn't important, and maybe what was, was the fact that there was something between them, and the fact that what was happening right now really did matter.

Maybe it was easier when it was secret and they didn't have to live with the whole world sticking their nose and their opinions into their relationship... 'relationship', maybe, but most likely not, but Ray didn't say anything: especially not now Mikey's hand was so close to his crotch - that'd just be stupid, of course.

And as the kissing continued and everything just seemed to fade out into a mess of not quite teenage love and kisses that were going to bruise for days now: secrets that would be hard to keep, and lies to concoct in advance, but Mikey didn't mind: his mind elsewhere as he wondered whether Gee had ever felt like this - confined into secrecy yet free and guilty yet at peace all the time.

Mikey wondered if he was just destined to go down the same path as Gee: he didn't particularly fancy it, but he wasn't in the mood to start fights with the inevitable - his head was spinning: something he'd call the fault of an excess of hormones, and everything was supposed to be about Ray and what was happening right now, but his head seemed to be everywhere but here.

And maybe it just wasn't bothering him just as much as it should be.

"Mikey?" Ray sat up, pulling himself away from Mikey as he caught the distant, almost concerned look upon his not quite boyfriend's face. "Are you okay? Do you- do you not want to do this?"

"I-I..." Mikey paused, exhaling loudly as he turned back to face Ray: an apologetic look in his eyes as he came to conclude that perhaps he didn't exactly know what to say at all. "I don't know. I mean, I would, but... I don't know... my head's elsewhere, I guess."

"Okay." Ray smiled at Mikey as he pulled his shirt back on, and simply sat beside his best friend as Mikey stared across the room: his mind a million miles away from what was happening between them. "What's wrong? What's on your mind... come on, tell me."

Mikey shrugged, his gaze hitting the floor as he considered just how the hell he was supposed to phrase this mess. "I keep thinking and I keep worrying and I keep thinking about you, and me, and Pete, and Gee, and my parents, and-"

"You were thinking about your parents whilst getting off?" Ray smirked a little, unable to stop himself, and really, Mikey liked him too much to be pissed off.

"Shut up... I... just... the whole sexuality thing, I mean, it's not exactly the same as with Gee with him being gay, and I'm demisexual, but... I'm going to end up like him some day, aren't I? Because one day my parents will find out about my sexuality and it's going to be just the same as it was with Gee and I'm going to end up doing nothing except wasting my life away with a bunch of stoners."

"Not necessarily." Ray sighed out, putting his arm around Mikey, who leaned into his side in a manner that would cause suspicion if his mother just happened to walk in now. "Life is what you make of it: Gee lives like that because he wants to, and he makes no effort to change it, whereas if you want something else then you're going to make the effort to change it."

"They're going to disown me though, I know they are, and this is just who I am and I can't help it, and fuck, it's not fair." And Mikey was getting dangerously fucking close to crying right now: it was only Ray, but his ego was still damn affected by this.

"I know it's not. It's never been... life's not fair in general, and well, Mikey, there's no way to put it other than the fact that your parents are assholes." Mikey chuckled a little at that, because, well, Ray wasn't exactly wrong, was he? 

"Yeah, I guess so." Mikey leaned further into Ray's side, which was a gesture Ray most certainly did not protest against. "Thank you... you know... for... well... making me feel better."

"It's nothing, don't worry: I don't like seeing you upset." 

"I... I... l..." And the words were caught in Mikey's throat: a coward from start to end, and Ray didn't quite know how he felt about this at all.

"It's okay." He smiled, grabbing Mikey's hand. "I know."

-

The wedding was in a few days.

That was William's cousin's wedding, not William and Gabe's wedding - that'd take a few more weeks at least, but it was of course inevitable, and the evidence of that was simply in the incredibly indiscreet homosexual manner in which they frequented gazing at one another at every damn opportunity.

And it had gotten to the extent that Travie had just given up and left the two on their own to just fucking sort it out by themselves, because he really didn't fancy getting choked to death by the immense amounts of sexualtension.

Gabe's parents were out, and that just about said it all, but of course, William Beckett stood in Gabe Saporta's bedroom, utterly oblivious to just how much homosexuality was occurring right now, like he could have asked Gabe to suck him off and he would be on his knees before he'd even finished his sentence.

It was ridiculous, and really, Brendon wasn't exactly missing out on much by not being invited to this extremely gay and extremely awkward gathering.

Seriously, they'd just about planned the whole Jesus ordeal days ago, but still, somehow they were still finding excuse to meet up, and for what reason, of course no one could possibly even begin to speculate.

"You know... what if your mum kind of like crucifies me...?" Gabe thought it best to break the silence somehow, but admittedly, his choice of words wasn't exactly the best option he could have chosen, but whatever, he’d tried, hadn't he?

"What?" William jumped a little at that, almost choking on his own words, which was rather disappointing as it was certain that there were much better things to choke on in such a close proximity to him. One of which being some 'small parts': a real choking hazard, indeed.

"You know... cause I'm Jesus... Jesus like gets crucified, doesn't he? I don't particularly want your mum nailing me.... to a wooden cross... not like... okay this sounds bad no matter how I say it."

"I'll nail you if you prefer-... to the cross..." And that blush roughly translated as 'oh shit I'm so dead brb going to bury myself in the nearest well', however that was particularly hard to read off a blush, so Gabe just got an extreme sense of no homo, which was rather discouraging, to say the least.

"I reckon it'd be quite hard... for you to... nail me... I mean... it's not exactly something that comes naturally... you have to bang quite hard to get the nailing to be successful... fucking hell... I..." And at that point, Gabe didn't know if he was laughing or just dying.

"It's okay, Jesus gets resurrected in like two days in that cave thing.. so like... you don't have to worried about get nailed, and things going wrong... please don't chicken out, okay, please come... otherwise it's going to be very hard... for me to come... out to my mum... I-"

"Alright, bible boy, can we stop talking about nailing and getting hard and coming for like two minutes, huh? How hard would that be, huh- ah fuck-" It seemed that Gabe Saporta was really nothing short of a Gay Supporter at heart.

"I'm not very good at withholding my homosexuality, it's so hard and it all just comes out once... I'm not even gonna, I just... okay, this is really hard and- look I... think you make a great Jesus and I- I-... I just want... I mean... maybe I... I..."

"Maybe you don't want your mum to bang me against some hard wood?" Gabe suggested, giving up on all previous efforts made towards faking heterosexuality by now.

"Uhh.." And William was blushing so hard that it wouldn't exactly be at all surprising if his cheeks just fucking fell off.

"Maybe you want me to bang you instead? Or am I reading these excessive levels of awkward homosexuality wrong here?"

"No, no you've got it straight- well gay... I... I... Can I even say four words without making some awkward gay joke? This is ridiculous." And really, William was coming close... to smashing his head into the wall.

"Ridickulous." Gabe smirked, leaning against William, and with the two sat so close on Gabe's bed... it was pretty damn ridickulous that they hadn't put that bed to good use at least twice yet.

"Okay... can we just like... kiss... and uhh... before I end up embarrassing myself more, because really, I'm not sure how I'm managing this... surely it's kind of hard by now-"

"I can't believe there are people in this world that think you're straight, William Beckett." Gabe shook his head in a ridickulous manner, but it just wasn't hard to accept that if William Beckett needed banging, Gabe Saporta was a Gay Supporter.

"I know, heteronormativity makes me laugh so hard that I end up choking... and I don't even have a dick in my mouth then, well, I assume that I would never be suck someone off and people would still assume I'm straight, I mean, if I'm sucking someone off, it would be pretty hard for them... to still believe that I'm straight."

"Maybe you should just suck your mum off and then maybe she'd get the message?" Gabe suggested very helpfully, of course, because there wasn't a chance in hell that such a plan could backfire at all.

"Unfortunately, my mum probably wouldn't be up for that, but yeah, I need to ensure everyone knows I'm gay and that seems like a pretty good way to do it."

"So, you'd suck off anyone who thought you were straight?" And all common sense in Gabe's head was going 'Gabe no', but Gabe's hormones, and well... Gabe's rock hard banging staff member was screaming 'Gabe yes'.

"Uhh... I guess so... like I'm not keen on incest, but-" And somehow, William was still utterly naive to what was happening here and that stupid fucking smirk that needed slapping right of Gabe Saporta's gay supporter face.

"That's fine we're not related."

"What?"

"Hey, Bill, I think you're straight - wanna prove me wrong?"

-


	34. Before reading comment who you think's gonna die & read to see if you're right

Alicia's life was rather questionable right now: her goals were minimal, and her future was just about as promising as the possibility of Brendon Urie ever sucking up and realise what a dickhead he was for the majority of the time.

And as she continued to neglect showing any signs of caring at all, her parents finally begun to care just a little bit, and even begin to wonder as to just where their teenage daughter was spending all the time she spent out of the house these days.

Alicia had woken up at precisely four pm on a Sunday, and it was getting ridiculous by now, becoming a weekly ritual, almost, and a kind of practise that was beginning to warrant answers of its own, but of course, as to whether Alicia was willing to answer such questions was a matter entirely of its own accord.

She replied to a text from her best friend, her only friend, the twenty six year old drug dealer, which was something she'd begun to accept all too casually by this point, and really, the reminder that this wasn't exactly normal barely even crossed her mind anymore.

Pulling on the first shirt she came across and the same jeans she'd worn yesterday, she made her way downstairs, and was whole heartedly disappointed to find that her parents were actually in, for like the first time in forever, which made a change for sure, but it most definitely wasn't a welcome one.

"What time do you call this?" Mrs Simmons raised her eyebrows right off her goddamn forehead, well, she wasn't Brendon Urie so it wasn't like she had an unnerving excess of forehead space, was it?

Alicia pulled her cellphone out of her pocket, reading the time displayed upon her lock screen aloud. "Six minutes past four." And really, judging by her mother's glare, that wasn't exactly the kind of answer she was looking for here.

"And where are you going?" Her father piped up from the corner of his room, looking up from his work laptop for about the first time in ten years. "You're dressed up to go out. Is that it? Barely two minutes here before you're off to god knows where?"

"Well, it's not exactly like you're here all the time, is it?" Alicia snapped, rolling her eyes, and knowing that this wasn't an argument she wanted to get into right now, let alone had the time for, but whatever, Bob would probably be stoned enough to believe it was nineteen sixty four if she told him so.

"Don't speak to your father like that!" Mrs Simmons stood up, looking her daughter up and down with a million questions at the back of her mind. "You owe us both an apology for your behaviour. You've slept and been out all weekend - are you not going to do your homework or spend some time with us or anything?"

She snorted at that, unable to restrain herself from rolling her eyes, because goddamn, they were being fucking ridiculous now. "Spend time with you? Oh, I wish. Dad's always 'working' and you're at some coffee morning that seems to last seven months on end."

"Oh don't pull the neglect card, you're not the victim here, Alicia - you came down here and insulted both me and your father and I'm sorry, but I can't let you get away with that. You've changed in the past few months, you know, you used to be a lovely young lady, and now we get this... attitude... and all that make up... ridiculous."

"I'm surprised you noticed." Alicia had no self restraint by this point, reckoning that her mother deserved any insult she threw at her now, and really, Alicia was more than prepared to hide out in Bob's house for the next week or so until this all blew over and her parents had forgotten all about this for the sake of pride and their reputation.

"With you acting like this, it's hard not to." Mrs Simmons shook her head in her daughter's direction with a certain degree of disgust that succeeded spectacularly in ensuring that Alicia absolutely loathed her parents with every being of her existence. "And, no, you're not going out now. You're going to sit down and eat 'breakfast' with us, and we're going to have a serious talk about your attitude, young lady."

"I'm not hungry." Alicia opted for the first excuse that came to mind, making a move to run past her mother and make a run for the front door and never stop until she reached Bob's house.

"What are you now? Anorexic? Think that it's cool not to eat because you want to be a goddamn walking skeleton-" And, well, Mrs Simmons really had fucking lost it by now, that was beyond evident.

"No. I'm just not hungry, and I have to go, because I promised my friend I'd meet them because it's important. I assume that if you can go and spend your whole life at a coffee morning then I can have things in my life that are more important than sitting down and eating a slice of toast to let you prove a point."

"Who's this friend of yours then? I bet they're a bad influence- look at you, come on," she turned to her husband, "look at her, she's a mess, she looks like a goddamn whore, doesn't she?"

"I'm not going to stay here and just let you insult me." Alicia snapped, pushing past her mother and making a move for the door, only to be pulled back and dragged to the table.

"I'm pretty sure that you're the one insulting me and your father here." Mrs Simmons inhaled rather loudly: over exaggerating it, and quite spectacularly so. "We just don't want you getting mixed up in things that are going to ruin your life: look at you, where even are you going, Alicia? I liked it better when you had those friends from netball, and you went to practices, and... that was the Alicia I liked best."

"Well, I like me best now, and it's really not your decision as to who I should be. I'm in charge of myself, and I get to pick who I am and what makes me happy, okay? That's not your business, mum, I'm sorry, but it's just not."

"What on earth are you talking about? I'm your mother! Of course it's my business."

"So if grandma goes and tells you to become a plumber because she wants you to, you're going to do that without question, are you?"

"No, because that's ridiculous-"

"My point exactly!" And with that, Alicia made a run for the front door, slamming it behind her with all her might as her mother screamed out after her, and her father maybe looked up from his laptop, but only momentarily.

-

"Are you okay?"

Bob was a little slow, to say the least, but then again, Alicia Simmons had stormed into his house and started crying as she pushed him aside in her way to the living room, where she curled up in a small ball, still sobbing, and all in the space of about ten seconds - all too fast, and all too slow.

"No." Her response was bitter yet expected, and Bob even found himself cracking a small smile at it, even if only just for a second, before coming to his senses of 'oh shit she's a teenage girl and she's crying what the fuck do I do?' he kind of really needed to call Lindsey for advice right now, but he doubted that Alicia would take all that kindly to such an amazing display of incompetence.

He locked the front door behind them at the very least, before following her into the living room and sitting beside her, letting Alicia curl up against him, still sobbing, but less so than before, and that was a success in Bob's mind.

"What's wrong?" He finally thought it best to ask, because like this: he was just confused and she was going to end up flooding the house with her tears at this rate, which, despite how much he cared for Alicia, was something Bob was not at all prepared for.

"My parents are assholes." She mumbled into his side, clinging onto his shirt with her fingers: he made her feel safe and okay, and he was less of a twenty six year old drug dealer now, and more of Bob, her best friend, who really fucking cared.

"All parents are assholes... well most... I mean... like... I mean... I'm-"

"Shut up." She sighed out, rolling her eyes, and pulling her head away from Bob's side enough to make eye contact with him. "You're not good at the whole comforting thing, are you?" Bob shook his head. "It's okay, because you're my best friend and I love you, though."

"Love you too." No hetero, of course, but the heterosexuality was all in full swing here, and it was evident, but it was just them, and they were okay, and Alicia's crying was fading away as Bob continued to hold her close.

They weren't dating, but that didn't mean that they didn't love each other.

Not everything had to fit inside the black and white box terms of stereotypical relationships, and not everything had to be defined and labelled to the exact detail. Some things could just be emotions and feelings, and things that put smiles on two people's faces together.

That was the kind of thing that Bob and Alicia had, and that was fine: maybe they'd date, maybe they wouldn't, but right now that didn't matter - it was just the two of them versus the whole goddamn world and Alicia's asshole parents and that cop that had seen Bob dealing earlier, and had caused the guy to actually run for the first time in nearly a decade now.

"My parents were being so fucking hypocritical, like, all of a sudden, they turn up actually in our house for once and they yell at me for wanting to go out and see you, like I'm sorry, but that's the first time I've had a conversation with them in over a week now, so- fuck... fuck them, seriously."

"Fuck them." Bob agreed, smiling down at Alicia. "But don't fuck them, because well, they're your parents, and incest and-"

"Shut the fuck up." She rolled her eyes, shifting so that she was just sat beside Bob: his arm still around her shoulders though, but don't worry, no hetero, ew, straight people. "You're a fucking idiot, you know that, don't you?"

"I have no proper job qualifications, of course, I know, but it's fine because I have you and a damn lot of weed." And Bob was grinning like a fucking idiot, and Alicia really just wished that things could just be that simple for her too, and that she wasn't stuck with seven million social pressures and the expectations of people she didn't really care about, because maybe she didn't want to be a doctor, or a netball player, or a teacher, or a secretary, or an astronaut, or anything... maybe she just wanted to stay here with Bob and waste away, but waste away in a happy way.

"You're an inspiration, you know." Perhaps that comment was just a little farfetched, but Alicia's emotions were everywhere right now, so whatever.

"Well, I can safely say that that's the first and only time anyone will ever say that to me."

"Oh, but you know, you're just you, you do what you want, and you're happy, and you live how you want to, and well, other people who disagree, they don't matter to you... and I'm just not sure I could ever do that." Alicia confessed, and really, she was touching Bob's heart here.

"You want to know my secret?" Bob asked, grinning like a fucking idiot. "Shit tons of weed. The secret to everything is weed, Alicia - it's that simple, I promise. Weed."

"And now you're a drug pusher." She pointed out, raising her eyebrows a little, as she shook her head at him. "Our friendship is probably the thing I would have expected least."

"Yeah, I mean, seventeen year old girls are well, usually annoying and stupid, but you're very pretty and very nice and very funny, and-"

"Okay, okay, enough with the complimenting me, Bryar." Alicia shook her head as she leaned back into his side, pulling her knees up to her chest. "I really don't want to go back and see my parents again."

Bob paused for a moment, considering his response, because damn, it was bad, but it was good, it was wrong, but it was right, it was black and it was white, and it was starting to sound an awful lot like a Katy Perry song.

"Then don't." 

Alicia paused this time, considering her options, again in a very Katy Perry like manner, it was wrong, but it was right, her shirt was black, she was white, she was hot, Bob's kitchen was cold, and she didn't know any other lyrics to this song.

"Okay."

And that stupid fucking smile again, and if this was a shitty teen drama on MTV, Katy Perry's 'Hot and Cold' would be playing the background right now, before a dramatic montage of awkward smiles between the two of them, before the scene faded to black, and the music turned up as the ad break rolled and you were faced with some fuckwit trying to sell you toilet paper.

-

Gee was heartbroken: his temporary emotional support boyfriend had cheated on him with Brendon fucking Urie, and well, he kind of deserved it, but Alicia was probably fucking Bob right now, and Gee was all alone in his relationship troubles.

Of course he could always ask Bert, but he was certain that doing that would be more counterproductive than anything, and well, Gee did not need help in fucking up quite so spectacularly, as it was more than evident that he was doing perfectly fine on his own.

Hey, maybe he should just grow the fucking balls to just talk to Frank, and try and sort something out: he'd been an asshole and Frank had reacted accordingly, and maybe that could be easily fixed with a simple apology, or maybe it couldn't, because maybe Frank hated him and maybe Gee was destined to live alone with only a lemon and Bert fucking McCracken for company, and well, Gerard knew which one he'd rather go near his ass.

That one time didn't count.

He was drunk and Bert was always an asshole, and that was going to ruin him: he fucking knew it, but hey, if Mikey could spend his whole life being a homophobic prick and still get a boyfriend, then he could somehow revive this messed up relationship with the cutest damn boy in the whole damn world, or at least he damn well hoped so, because his hopes for actually getting over Frank Iero, ever, were slim: very slim indeed.

But then it seemed that God had taken pity upon his sorry fucking ass and in the form of a goddamn text message, and one that was probably accidental or even to the wrong person, but still it was the fucking holy grail to Gee.

Can we talk? -F

Frank, of course, and Gee's heart was pounding in his chest and he knew that he shouldn't be anyway near as nervous regarding one fucking fuckboy with a cute smile and a cute everything, and fucking hell, it took Gee a good ten minutes of sitting in the corner and breathing heavily to gather the composure to text back a well thought out and incredibly heartfelt 'OK'.

Frank responded almost instantly, asking Gee to meet him at the park, which was mostly due to the fact that he did not want to deal with Bert, but then again, he wasn't to be blamed for that at all.

And just like that, Gee picked himself up from his bedroom floor, finished his cigarette and put on his sluttiest fucking miniskirt, because he need to flaunt his every asset, and let's just say that his thighs were one of them, also Frank definitely had a thing for the miniskirts, but then again, could you blame him? No.

"Going somewhere, princess?" Bert raised his eyebrows at Gee's appearance as the twenty five year old walked past the living room on his way to the front door.

"Don't call me that." Gee shook his head firmly, knowing it was the skirt, because well, that was just Bert and he was just the fuckboy supreme. "But yeah, I'm going out."

"Shame, or at least I wish you'd dress like that when I can see you- you're back with him, aren't you?" Bert's eyes practically ignited at that as he grinned so goddamn wide that it looked as if his cheek muscles were about to snap.

"No... I'm going to see him, I just-"

"Oh... that's how it is. Seducing him into taking you back? Shallow, Gee, shallow, but whatever, it's going to work, I promise you." And with that, Bert turned back to his laptop and the window he had minimised all too quickly as Gee had walked past.

"Uhh... thanks... I guess..."

-

Gee was late: one minute late, but whatever, he'd tried, and it was totally Bert's fault for being a fuckboy when he was trying to leave the house, and it totally wasn't his fault at all, and dear god, he hoped Frank wasn't pissed off, because... fuck- Gee was over thinking this by about seven hundred miles and he knew it, but whatever, he was here now, and it was too late to back out now.

"Hey." Frank was a perfect picture of awkwardness: shoulders slouched, hands in pockets, slight blush on his cheeks, and his gaze anywhere but Gee, but he looked cute as hell, and it definitely made up for it. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Huh?" Gee's eyes widened at that. "You texted me asking to talk here." He pulled out his cellphone and showed Frank the messages.

"That's from an unknown number... you just assumed that was me?" Frank asked, raising his eyebrows a little.

"Well... yeah... I kind of deleted your number... I guess... I mean-"

"Yeah, so did I." Frank admitted with a blush, holding up his cellphone and showing Frank an identical set of messages. "So we've been set up..."

"Alicia. Fuck, she's good." Gee shook his head, rolling his eyes a little.

"So, what you wanted her advice on getting me back, huh?" Frank asked, sitting down on the grass, Gee following suit seconds later, blushing like hell, of course. "Look, I'm sorry about... your face... I.. I-"

"I was an arrogant douchebag, it's my bad." Gee shrugged it off, giving Frank a small smile, because really, he was just thankful for this conversation, because he valued Frank so much that even talking to him was the highlight of his goddamn week.

"You know, Ryan said something to me the other day, and well... this thing, this situation - I feel shitty because I miss you and I hate myself for still caring about you, because these feelings don't just go away... ending it was a sudden anger kind of thing, and then... I was too stubborn... and... things escalated and I... I messed myself up here, but this is my choice, isn't it? I give you a second chance and that's my choice, whereas Ryan's stuck with seeing Brendon flirt with other people and he can't even forgive him if he wanted to, because Brendon's moved on, and now Ryan's the one hurting. I have a choice here, and it's giving you a second chance even though you screwed up, because we're horribly co-dependent and it's killing us both, or potentially fucking everything up just out of stubborn practice."

"A second chance would be amazing. I still care about you a goddamn hell of a lot." Gee admitted, his gaze drifting to the floor, and Frank sat in silence for a moment before responding.

"Okay." Gee's heart practically stopped at that. "But, promise me that it was just sleeping with Dallon, and that it hasn't happened before on a different occasions and that it won't happen again."

"I promise." He spoke without thinking, without thinking about what had happened with Bert fucking McCracken.

"Those few times with Dallon, only? And never again, and if you fuck this up, then we're one hundred percent done?"

"I won't, I promise."

"Okay." Frank smiled, meeting Gee's gaze and leaning in: it all fading out into 'I missed you' kisses and needy little whines from then on, and for the first time in too long, Frank felt okay.

Gee though, Gee was still a liar, but it would be fine... as long as Bert kept quiet, that is.

Anyway, he owed Alicia his whole fucking existence right now so he had that to think about instead at the very least.

-

It seemed that the temporary emotional support boyfriend needed some emotional support of his own for once.

Dallon had called Gee Way seven times now, but it was becoming more and more evident that he simply was not going to pick up, and just like that, Dallon was alone, and just like that clean meant nothing again.

And just like that, he emptied the contents of his stomach again, but still the ache didn't go away: his heart didn't stop hurting, and his stomach still groaned with pollution and sick, and his head, his head never stopped spinning and now was most certainly no exception.

He sat in the corner of his room for far too long: he sat there in silence, alone, forever. He sat there until the fifteen fifty three displayed in bright red LED numbers on his alarm clock became sixteen fifty three, and still he felt no better.

But still he felt no worse: he felt nothing, nothing at all, but that was still worse than it all falling to pieces, because at least then he'd have an action plan and it would make sense and he would know what he would have to, because Dallon always said that if things got too bad and that he couldn't take the forever ticking time bomb inside his head anymore, then he'd put it to rest with a bullet to his head, but it became apparent that he had no concept of what 'too bad' really meant at all.

Surely, things could always get worse, and they could always get better, and nothing was for certain, and perhaps he just didn't even want to know, but still Dallon counted every second and every minute and every breath he took, and his head never once stopped, and the ache inside him never once faded away.

He called Gee again, and still nothing.

And it made sense after all, Dallon was disposable, temporary, and Gee Way was so much more than that - he had people and he had things to leave for and Dallon was nothing more than the number of breaths he took in a minute, because right now that was all he knew, and all he'd ever be.

He wasted away another minute, but this time, he really thought, and he thought about everything and nothing and what would become of him and what wouldn't, and he thought about pills, and thought about razors, and he thought about bullets, and he thought about the nothing that planted such thoughts in his head in the first place.

It made no sense whatsoever, but he was alone and it hurt.

It always hurt, and it always ached, and his heart was screaming now: each number, each count, everything a scream for help and escape: a plead for silence to the every counting metronome at the back of his mind.

Help never came, silence was impossible, and Dallon was pathetic and all so very alone, but he couldn't stand another minute and he couldn't stand another second, and he even doubted he could stand up right now, but he needed puke again: he needed to rid his body of this mess inside of him.

But the cold, hard texture of bathroom tiles against the back of his head with his knees pulled up to his chest and a now empty stomach that only ached further, it became apparent that the mess was more than a little reluctant leave: trapped inside of him, perhaps.

And Dallon wondered where he'd go from here, and just how long it'd take him to get up from the bathroom floor, and where the medicine cabinet within arms reach meant more to him than the door handle and life outside of these four white tiled walls.

Dallon's head never seemed to shut up, but for sure he didn't think about a lot of things, and one of those was the certainty that he had no idea what had brought him here.

His skull was a rock, crushing down on his brain. His skull was a mountain: heavier each day, his brain was giving in, it was harder to bear, because you couldn't move mountains, not really. 

His brain was a time bomb, his thoughts were an never ending metronome, his eyes were sore and rubbed red and raw, having stared at the white wall opposite for hours now, his lips dry and chapped, parted and heavy with each breath forced manually through his lips in time to the monotony of his thoughts.

He swallowed and choked, forced breath of air plummeted down to his lungs: his blood flow slowing with the slow of oxygen: a mechanical heart failing and stalling as mechanisms ticked without response or control as his lips came together to close, and it all stopped: eyes open wide and fixated upon a bleached shade of white as whirring slowed and his fingers began to shake, bones rattling as white skin turned a kind of white that brought jealousy upon the bleached white of the wall opposite: his long time companion.

He was not all machine, he was not all mechanisms and ticking: he was life and breath and instinct and love, and the breath forced by the beating part of heart before it all goes black: he was reflex and he was the hand jittering as it reached the handle: the door heavier than he'd ever remembered it, but Dallon didn't particularly frequent the opening of the medicine cabinet.

He grabbed the first box of pills and opened them, not even caring for the label, for the name, for the identity, for his favourite type of poison, but he counted them nonetheless: every single one, and it was monotonous, but it was necessary, and thirty two pills laid out upon a piece of paper on the bathroom floor confronted him like an arch nemesis, yet were nothing more than an old friend.

They were interrupted, but Dallon was okay now, the screaming had stopped and everything was lined out for him: pill by pill, and it would stop, and his head would work and he would breathe again, and it would be okay, but they were interrupted: cellphone ringtone too loud and unnecessary, but soon resolved with a press to the 'off' button.

Silence.

Silence and the first pill.

They said the first one was always the worst one.

Dallon didn't know who 'they' were, and he most certainly didn't care for them.

He still ached inside, and he doubted that the pills would make it any better at all, but he knew for sure that they'd put a stop to it, and maybe that was for the better, maybe that was for the worse, but at least it was for something, because Dallon was done with the metronome, the steady and the never-ending, he was ready for the fade out: it wasn't necessary in style, but there was beauty in everything, you just had to slaughter your morals to see it.

And with time, the bleached white of the wall opposite turned into an inky black as his vision faded and he fell back against the bathroom floor, box of pills beside him and slight smile upon his lips.

-

"You never told me I had to wear a suit?" Despite being utterly fine with the whole cosplaying Jesus thing, Gabe was put to a stop by the simple notion of dressing up even just a little smartly.

"It's a wedding - I thought that was a given." William sighed out, looking up and making eye contact with Jesus, his boyfriend for the night. William had already put his shitty ass suit on, of course to avoid any awkward naked situations between them.

They were both adamant that nothing had happened and would happen between them, but the bruises on Gabe's knees told an entirely different story.

"When did you ever see Jesus wear a suit?" Gabe demanded with a relatively good point, but then again, it wasn't as if Jesus' appearance was the pivotal point of the bible: there wasn't a five hundred word monster paragraph dedicated to describe every inch of his appearance in great detail before they'd even gotten onto anything else - it was a religious text and not an OC story, after all.

"Yes, but I don't think a hobo in a sack is going to make my mum like this at all, is it?" Bill sighed out, sending a quick 'help me I'm drowning in my own homosexuality' text to Travie, who was really just unqualified to help his best friend with this problem, which was a really shame indeed.

"I'm not doing it if it's not accurate - puns have to be accurate, otherwise you just tried, like you tried pal, four out of ten." Gabe really did not want to wear a suit, it seemed.

"You've gotta like heal a blind man on your way there as well, if it's going to be 'accurate'. Just wear the damn suit, asshole - I don't see how you have a problem with a suit and not be Jesus for some guy you barely know to help him come out to his mum and inevitability get kicked out of his house for it."

"Don't worry, if you get kicked out, then there's always a place for you with my father in heaven- What... I'm just getting into character!"

"Sure..." William Beckett was anything but convinced. "With the whole heaven thing that sounds an awful lot like a death threat."

"Maybe it was. I really don't like suits." Gabe groaned, lying back onto the bed - William's bed, and there were serious homosexual urges occurring right now, and really, this situation needed a small leprechaun like man to pop out from under the bed and blare a klaxon before screeching 'no homo' at the top of his lungs and using magic to throw William as far away from Gabe as possible: his body flying back through the wall of the house and off through the atmosphere and into space, where he inevitably died. 

And that's why homosexuality is bad, kids, you'll get flung into space by a leprechaun hiding under your bed. Note that this isn't a weed leprechaun, as the chances of Bob Bryar getting under a bed, let alone getting back out of there again are minimal.

"You're going to have to turn up naked then." Bill lost his patience, texting Travie back with a 'please help me I want to get on my knees right now', which left Travie to question why he ever put up with this gay emo shitlord in the first place.

Of course, Gabe was nowhere near as nonchalant as William was: coughing and spluttering and practically dying on William's bed, but not choking, not yet, anyway.

"Oh, so it's the suit then, is it?" William smirked, putting his phone down, which was a real damn relief on Travie's part. "Come on - get dressed."

"Why should I? Give me an incentive, Beckett, I'm not stupid." Gabe was seriously beginning to regret ever agreeing to this, because William Beckett was really just killing him like this, because damn, that boy was gay as fuck (and cute as hell too).

"You get to make out with me in front of a homophobic woman who thinks you're called Jesus. What better incentive is there?" Truth be told, William was losing his patience and Travie hadn't responded in the past few minutes so had definitely thrown his cellphone into a river to avoid these messages from Bill.

"You could give me a blowjob." Gabe offered, just kind of throwing the idea out there, and causing William to swallow hard as their gazes met, and really, he should have been saving his swallowing abilities for later. "Only fair, isn't it? Or are we still ignoring that? The bruises on my knees make it very obvious, Bill."

"It was just a thing." He choked out, attempting to back away from Gabe, but finding himself pressed up against his bedroom wall: Gabe having jumped up from the bed and moved in about two seconds flat.

"That can mean a lot of things." Gabe sighed out, pushing William’s hair behind his ears. "Get on your knees and I'll pull the suit on, and I'll be Jesus, and it will all be fine, unless your mum kicks you out, in which case I may find myself obliged to offer my sympathies, but... Bill... make your fucking mind up, okay? This is either a thing, or it's nothing, and it's to be forgotten."

"I'm no good with words. I- I can't - I can't explain-" Nerves and a multitude of them: all evident, and he didn't even care about the wedding and coming out anymore, it was just Gabe.

"Well, that's fine: you can put your mouth to another use." And within seconds, William did, and Gabe didn't half feel accomplished, although damn, he really wasn't expecting him to actually follow through, and he was still rather un keen when it came to the prospect of wearing a suit, but whatever, he could shut the fuck up, William Beckett was on his knees for him, and damn, it was good.

The two jolted a little, and William's mouth did a horribly obscene thing to Gabe with the sudden jolt, as Gabe pulled his cellphone out of his pocket: Brendon, and fuck, he knew the guy was pissed - they hadn’t spoken in days.

"It's important." He looked down at William, who almost looked a little disappointed, pulling away. "No, don't stop. I can multi-task, I'm Jesus, after all." William was instantly unconvinced, but whatever, fuck it, maybe ruining Gabe Saporta's life with awkward unwanted moans would make him feel a hell of a lot better.

"Brendon?" Gabe asked, answering the phone: anxious, but that was just a given, considering his state.

"Gabe, I- I have to- it's an emergency, I... I don't know what to do- you're the first person who picked up, I... I- Dallon... he's taken something... I think... I don't know, but he won't wake up- I- I've called an ambulance, but I... I can;' I... help I-"

"Brendon, fuck- I... can you stop for a moment?"

"What?"

"No, not you... I'm kind of getting sucked off right now, but-"

"What the fuck- hey, it's William, it's William, isn't it?"

"Brendon, calm down... I... I really can't come over right now... I have a wedding in like thirty minutes... I mean... I- I-..." He glanced down at William, who looked up at him that questioning gaze: judging him like hell itself.

"So, it's him or me, isn't it, Gabe?"

Gabe swallowed hard, nodding.

-


	35. Maniacal Laughter

White walls.

White walls, again.

White walls, forever.

White walls, always.

The same kind of white that brought blood red as his head smashed against the tiles of the bathroom floor, and the last few pills that lay abandoned at the bottom of the box scattered out onto the floor like skittish mice.

But a different kind of white, entirely.

This white was world's away, maybe it was peace, maybe it was heaven: it certainly could have been, but in reality it was four white walls, just with an absence of tiling and a nearly empty box of pills on the floor.

This was beds, and windows, and people, and still not one of them mattered all enough to make him regret doing it.

And from the smell: overly hygienic and enough to make him sick but entirely the wrong way, to the scrubs and name tags: titles, information, yet all meaningless, he knew.

The white walls were his true enemy: they'd foiled his plan, they'd fucked it all up, as they'd followed him here: ghosts haunting him enough to drive him into craving the blackness of nothing back.

Dallon Weekes woke up in hospital and stared at the white walls around him for a good four minutes, almost ignorant and oblivious to the world around him: doctors, people, his name called, gestures - it meant nothing, and it was worth nothing more than the sinking feeling in Dallon's heart as the metronome in his head kicked back into work, and he was certain that it had all been worth nothing in the end.

"Dallon? Please, can you hear us, son?" Mr Weekes was sorrowful, wide eyed and in the same disbelief he had been since the very moment he'd gotten the call from the hospital, and god, he felt like shit for ever leaving his son alone like he had.

"Yeah..." Dallon finally brought himself to respond: a simple and almost effortless word that still meant everything to the few people gathered around him and the hospital bed like their lives depended on it.

He was hooked up to several different disconcerting pieces of machinery, and found it rather difficult to move from the position which he'd been propped up against the headboard in, but he felt no real need to try, so it was all good.

"Dallon, can you remember what happened?" The man who Dallon had rightly assumed to be his doctor asked, scribbling something down on a clipboard in a manner that Dallon didn't particularly appreciate. "I'm sorry, I haven't- I'm Doctor Dylan Monthes."

"Yeah." Dallon shrugged it off again, somehow not really feeling all the excited to describe his failed suicide attempt to some random guy, whilst his parents intently listened in.

"And... could you tell me what happened?" Doctor Monthes continued, trying his best not to snap at the teenager, because well, he wasn't exactly being all the cooperative and it had been a fucking long day, okay?

"I took some pills, I passed out." Dallon continued to answer in great vivid detail, and just so to bring Doctor Monthes to scribble something about lack of cooperation of his clipboard, before moving on and leaving the therapist to deal with it from here on.

"You attempted suicide, if I'm correct? You took at least thirty pills-"

"Thirty two." Dallon found himself correcting the doctor without thinking, and found his cheeks buried beneath a crimson blush as a result of it. "I took thirty two pills from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and I passed out against the floor."

"You shouldn't have done that, Dallon." Doctor Monthes was well aware that his tone was condescending, to say the least, but he couldn't really gather the motivation to care anymore about some kid who'd overdosed.

"Yeah, I know."

"You're going to have an appointment with your therapist later today, and you'll have to stay in hospital for the next week or so, but, there's nothing wrong with you physically - we had to pump your stomach, of course, and bandage your head where you fell against the tiles, but you're absolutely fine and very much alive - let's keep it that way, huh?" Dallon only scowled in response, because well, this doctor was overdoing the 'I'm a massive dickbag' act by a fucking mile. "Also you have an appointment with a nutritionist, tomorrow, but other than that-"

"A nutritionist?"

"Yes, you're seriously underweight, and I wouldn't be wrong to suspect you have some sort of eating disorder." And with that, Doctor Monthes left, leaving Dallon to face his fucking parents, because fuck.. fuck this.

"Why?" His mother was the first to speak, and almost tore up as she did so. "Why did you want to do this? You're not being bullied, you're not being abused, you're not neglected, you're- you're just... I don't understand, Dallon. I want to, but I just don't."

"I don't know... I just... I'm messed up and I... my head... is f- messed up and I... don't know what to do about that-"

"Not kill yourself, Dallon, surely you know that?" Mrs Weekes exclaimed, her eyes widening a little as she did so, and even further as Dallon only shrugged in response. "I'm going to go for a cigarette." She announced, moments later, her cheeks red and her breathing heavy.

"She's just upset, that's all, don't worry." His dad sat at the foot of Dallon's bed. "We love you, you know that, don't you?" Dallon nodded. "Good. You scared me, you now, I thought I was going to lose you, and I can't- I know I haven't always been there, but I could never lose my son. I love you, Dallon, very much so. Your friend, though, I can't thank him enough, he called the ambulance, he went to see you, I think, and found like that- and... neither me or your mum would have been home for hours afterwards, and without him, you surely would have died... I mean... he really must care about you- I think he's still in the waiting room to hear if you woke up or not."

"Who? Who is it?" Dallon's eyes widened a little, wondering just who on earth would care quite that much.

"Br- Brandon-... Br-?"

"Brendon?" And Dallon just didn't know how to react, because Brendon Urie had most certainly just saved his life, but Dallon fucking wanted to kill him for it. 

"Let him, I want- I need to talk to him."

"It's family only." Mr Weekes let out a sigh. "I would have let him in already if it wasn't."

"Then lie, tell them he's my cousin or my brother or something, I don't care, please, I need to see him..."

"Okay." 

And just like that, Dallon Weekes was smiling again. 

-

It was the wrong decision, and Gabe knew it like he'd never known anything before.

He sat in silence in his bedroom: William sat about a metre away from him in the same silence - and it killed the both of them, but not in the same way that it nearly killed Dallon, of course.

William's life had exactly gone that well either recently: his mum had reacted in quite possibly the worst way possible, and as of right now, William Beckett had no place other to go then Gabe Saporta's bedroom, and really not in the way that he would have liked.

"I tried to call him again." Gabe announced into the silence, but speaking more to the wall opposite than William, not that he minded, as he was more so just glad to hear Gabe speak for the first time amidst this mess. "No response, of course. He just declined the call, and I think that's worse: he doesn't even have the time or care enough to wait it out to make it look like an accident: he wants me to know that he hates me, that I fucked up, and that I fucked up pretty fucking good."

"I fucked up too." William added after a few moments of silence.

"Fuck you, Bill, I was talking to the wall." Gabe really wanted to say, and really, he just couldn't resist the temptation at all, and let's just say that William Beckett was a little taken a back by Gabe's retort.

"Okay..." He sighed out in response, pulling his gaze away from the teenager's, and wondering just what the hell would become of him from here on. "Is Dallon okay?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Gabe snapped out in response before he could stop himself, but as he met William's gaze, he knew he couldn't hate him like this: it wasn't William's fault, it was most definitely his. "Brendon still won't even attempt to talk to me at all."

"Oh... I'm sorry." And William didn't have to apologise to Gabe, he really didn't, but still, he found himself with no thoughts of anything else to do, because the guy was letting him sit in the corner of his bedroom right now, and it certainly made a damn good alternative to a street corner.

"No..." Gabe sighed out, shaking his head and throwing his cellphone onto his bed in something that vaguely resembled frustration. "I'm sorry. Your mum just kicked you out for being gay- I mean- I... fuck... I, I, you can stay here by the way, I mean, I owe that to you at the very least... my parents probably aren't going to like it, but-"

"It's fine- I... you don't have to- I can stay with Travie, I guess." William shrugged it off, pulling his knees up to his chest as he spoke. "The Jesus thing was kind of funny though."

"Yeah..." Gabe trailed off, getting to his feet, and turning to the mirror on his wall. "Still fucking hurts from where your mum slapped me though." He rubbed the sore red mark on his face in the mirror, as William stood up across the room, and made his way over to stand beside Gabe in front of the mirror.

"It was a stupid idea." Of course, it was usually someone else's job to come up with those goddamn stupid ideas, but, William let out a sigh, only for Gabe to surprise him by putting his arm around his shoulders, gaze still fixated upon their reflections. "You can stay. You're gonna stay, Bill, because I care about you, and I fucked things up enough already: I want this to be the one good thing I do, okay- I want you to be the one good thing I do- not like that I..."

"What about if I did want it like that?" William remained silent for a moment before piping up with just about the absolute worst thing that he could have ever imagined saying. "I like you, Gabe, I like you a lot... and I just don't know whether your feelings for Brendon are-"

"I don't have feelings for Brendon?" Gabe exclaimed, his eyes widening enough to warrant him turning to face real William, and not just his reflection.

William laughed a little, shrugging it off. "Whatever you say. You two are awfully close, and I can't help but be jealous, you know. because I like you, Gabe, I really do. For serious, I like you."

"Okay. Well that solves the problem of where you're going to sleep." Gabe grinned at him, and made his way over to the bed, sitting down cross legged with his back propped up against the headboard. "Come on." He gestured for William to join him. "This isn't a sleep with me thing, don't worry... I just... I don't know. Fuck it, I don't know what the hell's going on inside my head right now, but it most definitely involves you."

And with that, William Beckett followed suit and sat beside Gabe Saporta: leaning far too into his side for this to be anything but a case of extreme homo.

"Brendon's going to forgive you eventually." William whispered into Gabe's side: something like a promise, something like a reminder, but it was something that meant a hell of a lot, nonetheless.

"If you say so." Gabe didn't want to deny it outright, but he was more than just a little hesitant to believe it, to say the least.

"I do."

"Shut the fuck up, we're not getting married." William only rolled his eyes in response, and leaned further into Gabe in a gesture that vaguely translated as 'not yet, you mean, not yet'.

"People seem to think we are." He added, and well, he wasn't wrong, and neither were those 'people', because some serious homo was occurring right now.

"People can think whatever they want: doesn't necessarily mean it's true." Gabe shrugged it off, and really this was just about a perfect example for the dictionary definition of 'no homo'.

"You were the one inviting me to sleep with you minutes ago." William couldn't help but point out the very blatant, homosexual truth.

"I- I... you're fucking with my head, Beckett." Gabe announced, again, perfectly displaying his abilities of 'no homo'.

"How am I?"

"By looking so goddamn cute, and being so fucking gay, and- I'm trying to be straight here, you know..."

"Why the fuck would you ever want to be straight?" Bill retorted in a state of horrified disbelief.

"Honestly, I don't want what happened to you to happen to me." Gabe admitted, pulling his knees up to his chest. "But that makes me sound like an asshole. Maybe I'm just bi or something, I don't know... but I like you, I know that, and it's fucking me up... I know that too."

"I was sucking your dick yesterday."

"Yeah, and look where that got us."

-

Dallon's dad had the respect to at least leave them alone, but really, from the way this kid with the massive forehead was looking at his son, he reckoned it was really in nothing but his best interest.

Brendon, or the kid with the massive forehead, sat at the foot of Dallon's hospital bed, inhaling sharply as he drew his gaze over the various tubes and medical equipment that Dallon was hooked up to, almost like a reanimated corpse, or a doll of some sort: he didn’t feel real, not at all, but Brendon could never be more thankful for the steady rise and fall of someone's chest, because hey, maybe Dallon Weekes mattered one awful hell of a lot, and maybe this had only served to prove that to Brendon.

"Hey..." Brendon didn't exactly know what to say, and in consideration of the circumstances, perhaps he could be forgiven, but still, there was an awful lot he could have said to the boy hooked up to a dozen machines that he nearly lost, but still, he couldn't bring the words to his lips, and they remained in an awkwardly peaceful silence for far too long.

Brendon wasn't used to caring about people: not like this, anyway.

With Ryan, and even Sarah, he'd grown to almost just take them for granted: Ryan was head over heels and loved him unconditionally, of course until it happened, but he never once truly feared that he was going to lose Ryan, but with this: sat at the end of Dallon Weekes' hospital bed, he felt like an entirely different person in comparison to the Brendon Urie who'd stepped into that comic book store and cheated on Ryan Ross.

This almost reminded him of his dad, and how he could save him, and in turn, how he just couldn’t bare for the same to happen to Dallon, because Dallon needed him, and there was a narcissistic, yet self-conscious part inside of Brendon that needed someone to need him.

"Hey." Dallon added after a moment, shifting in bed to face Brendon a little better. "I-I'm sorry... I guess."

"It's fine." It wasn't, but Brendon told him so nonetheless, because the last thing Dallon Weekes needed right now was for someone to hate him. Of course, Brendon Urie didn't lie to save the feelings of just anyone, but then again, by now, Dallon Weekes was far from 'just anyone'.

"No, y-you had to- to find me like that- y-you... you couldn't have I-I... you never should have had to see me like that- I..." Dallon shook his head firmly, choking his words out. "You must have thought I was going to die, and- I... no one deserves that- I fucked- I fucked everything-"

"It's okay." Brendon silenced him with an almost misplaced smile. "I know what that feeling's like... I mean... I guess... it wasn't as bad as last time, but still it was worse- I mean, I'm so glad that you're alive, because it wasn't the same last time, and I could not cope with that at all... it fucks with your head, it really does, and I wasn't going to lose another person I love- fuck, I..."

"Last time? Pete?" Dallon raised his eyebrows a little, having not expected that Brendon would have cared quite so much about Pete Wentz.

"No." Brendon shook his head, biting his lip a little as he did so, because he'd become awfully accustomed to just blurting this out as of recent, and he knew he shouldn't, but, fuck, this was Dallon.... Dallon, and somehow Brendon was at the point in his life where Dallon's name felt like it warranted the use of italics. "My dad... shot himself... a few years ago..." He trailed off, turning his head away and waiting entirely far too long for a response, because well, Dallon was shocked, to say the least.

"Fuck... are you okay?" Dallon exclaimed, reaching out and grabbing Brendon's hand from where it lay against the bed, and well, that got Brendon's attention, to say the least.

"I'm better now, I mean, it still fucks with my head, but... I mean... it's just a thing, I guess, now..." Brendon shrugged, his cheeks a kind of scarlet that he was hugely unaccustomed to as Dallon curled his fingers around Brendon's hand.

"So... if I... you know... would I be just a thing?" Dallon couldn't help but ask. "Or would I... I don't know... I don't know what I'm saying: you don't have to answer this."

"You'd be the most important thing: you'd be the 'thing' I could never forget, you'd be the tears when I cried myself to sleep at night, and you'd be the thought always at the back of my mind, because Dallon Weekes, I don't think I could ever truly live without you, I mean, sure I could try, but you'd always be there: almost like a shadow, almost like a ghost, just slowly driving me insane with yearning for you. Don't kill yourself, please."

Dallon sat in silence for a few minutes, just processing Brendon's words, before finally uttering out a somewhat unexpected response. "Okay." He curled his fingers tighter around Brendon's hand.

"W-why did you want to in the first place?" Brendon couldn't help but ask: to ask just enough questions to ruin it, just enough questions to cause Dallon to loosen the grip of his hand, but not yet: it was inevitable, but it didn't have to happen yet, and somehow, Brendon was satisfied with that.

"My head's fucked up: it's killing me- I... I'm... driving myself crazy just by breathing, because I'm counting every breath like I'm counting every calorie and I- my head doesn't stop ticking: it's everything: counted and noted, constantly whirring and it never stops... I'm like a machine and there's just no way to turn it off."

"You should probably talk to someone about that." Brendon suggested after a moment of heart wrenching perplexation.

Dallon shrugged it off. "Guess I've got no choice now: I have a 'therapist' now, so that'll be great fun."

"You should try- you should- try to get better, I mean... I want you to be happy, I want you to be healthy, I want to wake up in the morning without having to worry if you're alive or not: I want to sleep soundly at night and not with my face pressed up against the cold plastic of a hospital waiting room chair as I wait to see if you've okay or not. I care about you, Dallon."

Dallon let out a sigh, shrugging it off the best he could. "I'm nothing without my flaws: I'm all flaws and no beauty. You wouldn't like a 'perfect' me."

"I like any you: all flaws or no flaws. I like you, and I really like the way you're holding my hand right now, whereas something I don't like so much is the fact that I don't quite have the courage to hold your hand properly."

"Why not?"

"I'm a fuck up: I always fuck this up, and you deserve anything but me right now."

"I'm a fuck up too, look at me, come on, we're a perfect match."

"But opposites attract-"

"That doesn't mean they work out in the long run, does it? Now come on, Urie, fucking hold my hand you little shit."

And, needless to say, Brendon did. 

-

Ryan was getting better, or at least he thought so, but of course, Ryan wasn't actually sick, lovesick perhaps, but physically sick? No.

However, in his mind, there wasn't all that much difference: he still ached, and he still spent all of his days wanting to cuddle in bed eating chocolate, but Ryan kind of wanted to do that all the time anyway, so, whatever.

But he was definitely smiling a hell of a lot more as of recent, and this progress just couldn't help but coincide with the fact that he'd been seeing an awful lot less of Brendon lately, and even if Ryan hadn't quite figured this out yet, without a doubt, Patrick had.

And really, Ryan was far more okay with that than he should have, but Patrick had somewhat taken Brendon's place in becoming his best friend, and Ryan was far less ashamed of that than his conscience yearned for him to be.

Ryan and Patrick had made their way to Joe Trohman's house, and Ryan had spent the last few minutes staring off into the distance, his head world's away, as Joe and Patrick engaged in some unnervingly in-depth conversation about enemas whilst they waited for everyone else to arrive.

Ryan had almost found himself thrown into Joe's little group as of recent, and really, he wasn't all that sure if he minded, because, he wasn't really all that close to any of the others besides Frank, and Frank was kind of going through some sort of crisis regarding Gee Way right now that ensured he cut off just about all contact with anyone else in the world.

And if Brendon had fucked off with Gabe Saporta, then surely Ryan could do just the same, except not with Gabe, because, in Ryan's opinion, Gabe was a fucking asshole - it was entirely controversial, of course, but Patrick agreed with him, and Patrick knew everything, so he was practically right, anyway.

But then, as Patrick and Joe's conversation took a rather milky tone, which had somehow sparked Ryan's attention, the front door burst open, which they'd left upon for people to arrive and just prayed that any serial killers in the area had just decided to take an off day today, and Spencer and Andy practically stormed inside, the two even looking a little out of breath, which was kind of weird, because exercise? No thanks Pete. Oh wait, Pete's dead. Kind of like the fourth wall right, oh well.

"Uhmm... what?" Was the best Joe could come up with as he glanced the two up and down, almost unsurprised at Dallon's absence by this point, because Joe hadn't seen the guy for weeks now: it was like he was avoiding him or dead or something.

"F-fuck." Spencer supported himself against the wall as he tried to restrain himself from throwing up everywhere.

"Dallon's in hospital." Andy blurted out as Spencer hurled into the conveniently placed trashcan.

"Wait- fuck- what? Seriously, Spencer how unfit are you?- wait- I... what?" Joe's head was a mess to say the least, and he even turned to Patrick for help, but the gingerest person in the room only stood wide eyed and a little overwhelmed.

"Do you mind if I just go over there and pass out for a minute?" Spencer asked, before pushing past Patrick and laid down on the sofa that Ryan was still perched on the end of, and now shuffling to the very end of, because he didn't particularly fancy being puked on today, thank you very much.

As Spencer casually died on the sofa, Andy made his way into the living room, Joe and Patrick following him as they hung onto his every word. "Well, Spencer went to Dallon's house to ask him if he was ever going to consider leaving the house, but his mum was there and told him that Dallon was in hospital- and... I-"

Spencer sat up at that point, declaring himself officially recovered from his grave encounter with physical exertion. "He overdosed... I- apparently he's alive, but Dallon's mum doesn't particularly like me because there was that one time that I kind of killed her accidentally cat via accidental amputation, but, that's all I got off her."

"Fucking hell- I knew... I knew it- fuck-" Joe exclaimed, turning to Patrick who gave him a shrug in a response: a cold 'I told you so' shrug that Patrick didn't quite have the character to verbalise.

"Wait, what?" Spencer asked, doing a weird puzzled/constipated expression with his eyebrows that everyone just thought better not to question. "What did you know?"

"He has an eating disorder and I tried to confront him about it, but-"

"It's like Pete. All over again." Patrick let out a deep sigh, making his way over to Ryan and leaning into his side in a totally heterosexual manner.

"Yeah, well, Dallon's not dead." Spencer pointed out, and rather bluntly so, to say the least.

"And Pete is, so fuck off will you?" Ryan spoke up for just about the first time in that conversation, and in defence of Patrick, which was entirely worthwhile in his mind.

"We need to go fucking visit him- I... how far is it to the hospital?" Joe asked, grabbing his cellphone and attempting to search it up on Google maps or something.

"Chances are that it's going to be family only." Andy added with a disheartened sigh, but that wasn't going to stop Joe at all.

"So? We can be his second cousins or something-" Joe shrugged it off, only for Spencer to tell him that it was a ridiculous idea, and this was coming from the guy who'd eaten one hundred grapes in five minutes in sixth grade, because someone fucking dared him to.

"Not going to work." Spencer shook his head firmly. "I speak with experience."

Ryan got up from the sofa and grabbed his cellphone from the coffee table, only for Joe to stop him.

"He's not going to have his cellphone with him if he's dying in a hospital bed, is he?"

"I'm texting Gee, who just happened to date Dallon, and probably has the best chance of getting in due to the fact that he doesn’t like some teenage prat who is lying to see their friend in hospital." Ryan explained, and rather casually so, only to receive a less than casual response.

"Wait- what?" Joe exclaimed, grabbing Ryan's arm, and in turn, his attention. "He dated- what? When was this?"

"Oh... you didn't know?" Ryan’s cheeks flushed a horrible shade of red.

"He hasn't spoken to me in weeks. I didn't even know that he was gay!" 

"Get with the times, Joe, everyone's gay." Spencer rolled his eyes, before lying back down, face first on the sofa, leaving Joe to neglect telling him about how that was the exact spot his dog had pissed on last week.

"Did anyone know?" Joe asked, turning to Andy and Spencer, only to receive hopeless shake of the heads in response, but then, his gaze fell upon the once occupied, and now awkwardly empty spot on the end of the sofa. 

"Hey, where's Patrick?" 

-

Bob Bryar usually found himself at Gee's house, and often in search of Bert McCracken, but this time, Gee found himself at Bob's house, and in search of certain Alicia Simmons, who both he and Frank most definitely owed their lives to right now.

Bob answered the door after a few rings of the doorbell, and with a slightly irritated facial expression, which went a full one hundred and eighty degree turn at the sight of the two of them. "Frankie... I haven't seen you in forever!" And before Frank Iero quite knew what was happening, his organs were being crushed as Bob Bryar embraced him in a 'hug' that kind of felt just a little more like an extreme form of friendly strangulation.

Gee let out a cough, raising his eyebrows at Bob as he reluctantly pulled away from the slightly overwhelmed seventeen year old. "I'm here too." He pointed out, not at all offended, but Bob made sure to nearly strangle him with a hug as well, before a rather tired looking Alicia Simmons made her way to the door.

"Bob, you're going to kill him." She pointed out, chuckling a little, and giving Frank some sort of smile based non-verbal greeting. "We don't want anymore people to die, do we?"

"Who have you killed?" Bob was deadly serious and let go of Gee so suddenly that if Frank hadn't been there, the poor guy would have probably fallen straight back onto the concrete of Bob Bryar's drive, and then, maybe someone else might just have died.

"No one." Alicia smirked, and they were all just left to pray that she was joking, because if Bob knew anything, it was that you should never underestimate Alicia Simmons. "I see you two are talking again."

"We're doing a lot more than talking." Gee admitted, with a small grin, and well, Frank nearly regretted saving him from his death just a few seconds ago. "And we felt compelled to thank you."

"What am I? Your fairy godmother, but for like fucking- the fairy fuckmother... motherfucker... I'm a motherfucking fairy, whatever, I'm totally a kickass fairy, though." And there was no arguing with that. "You can come inside if you want."

The three followed Alicia into the living room: Bob taking up his prior position on the sofa and lighting a cigarette. "Want one?" He looked up at Gee and Frank as he held up the packet of cigarettes.

"Yeah, sure. Frankie?" Gee took the packet from Bob's hands, and glanced at his boyfriend: Frank shook his head in response, which gained quite the reaction, to say the least. "What on earth is wrong with you, Iero?"

Frank shrugged it off. "I'm quitting." And Gee stared at his boyfriend like he didn't know him at all as Frank sat down beside Alicia, and Gee was left to take the seat next to Bob as he headed him the packet back.

"Good luck with that." Bob seemed to laugh it off, blowing a cloud of smoke in Gee's direction, who blew one back just to spite him.

"No, I'm serious." Frank protested, his cheeks reddening a little in a manner that was nothing but embarrassing. "I've thought it over and concluded that I'd rather not die of lung cancer."

"Not everyone who smokes gets cancer, kid - otherwise there'd be none of us left." Bob laughed it off, leaving Frank's cheeks to flush a horrible shade of red, that left Gee sat there stunned into silence: unsure what to do, because this was not the same Frank Iero that had dumped him, that was for sure - whether it be identity theft or character development, he was unsure of yet.

"Yeah, but it's bad for you." Frank added, pulling his knees up to his chest, and even finding himself looking to Alicia for support, who had opted to remain silent up until now.

"He's right, anyway, it's his decision if he wants to quit, and it's your decision if you want to smoke - fucking leave it." Alicia rolled her eyes, and despite being the youngest one in the room, finding herself opting as parental guidance or something.

"Yes ma'am!" Bob mock saluted her, and Alicia only let out a half-hearted chuckle in response: it was just Bob - he was just joking.

"Are you two dating?" Gee couldn't help but ask what was just about the most asked question in the whole damn universe. "Sorry, I- I just-"

"It's fine." Alicia gave him a small smile, shrugging it off. "We're not, but I live here now."

"How come?" Gee asked, his eyes widening in something that resembled shock.

"I hate my parents, and they hate me." She didn't go into too much detail, and Gee didn't ask for more: he knew what bad parents could be like, and exactly why she might not want to talk. "They've tried to contact me again, but I've told them to fuck off a good few times now and it's starting to lose its initial novelty, which is kind of depressing, I guess."

"My parents have just about given up by now, I think - it took years, but eventually, they'll give up." Gee offered her a supportive smile. "They kicked me out because I'm gay, and really, all I care about is that they don't do the same for Mikey."

"He's got you, though. He's got you to go and stay with if they do."

"Yeah, but it's not exactly ideal: I don't want Bert around my little brother... I don't really want Bert around anyone I care about for extended periods of time - let alone living with him, but-"

"Then why do you live with him?" Frank snapped, speaking up for the first time in minutes, and grabbing the whole room's attention as he did so.

"Oh come on, Frank, I've got nowhere else to go." Gee let out a sigh, trying to plead with Frank via the use of nothing but facial expressions. "I'm used to him, anyway."

"Just because you're used to something doesn't mean that it's good for you. I'm used to being called a faggot, but it doesn't mean that I should just let it happen." Frank countered him with a particularly well-constructed comeback, which ensured that absolutely everyone felt extremely uncomfortable in the room. "...I'm used to being cheated on, still doesn't mean that-"

"Frank." Alicia stopped him before he could fuck up his life further. "You've forgiven him, you're good - don't fuck your life up again: how about that?"

"Fine." Frank let out a sigh. "At least it wasn't him you slept with."

Bert.

And oh how oblivious Frank was.

-


	36. The Frerard Pizza

He'd told him not to come, but still, Dallon Weekes knew that Brendon Urie was sat in the waiting room like he knew that Brendon Urie was the owner of the world's biggest forehead.

Dallon could ignore just how massive Brendon Urie's forehead was for the simple hope that everything else was to scale downstairs, and still, Dallon shouldn't even be obsessing quite like this, and simply only after holding hands with the guy, but Dallon wasn't the guy who spent hours in a waiting room just to see some random guy who almost killed himself.

She's condescending, and he can read off the glasses pushed down to the tip of her nose, the way her eyebrows raised as she flicked through Dallon's medical records, and most importantly: her profession - therapist.

Dallon hated her already and they'd barely exchanged more than a simple hello, but still, Dallon was confident in his accusations, because if she had the confidence to look down upon him like that, then he had the confidence to react appropriately, or at least as he deemed appropriate, of course.

"Dallon." She finally decided to address him, after two minutes and forty seconds that he'd sat in silence for, and really, Dallon had counted - of course he had. "I'm Mrs Clit." It was the kind of name that warranted Dallon's confusion about whether this was a practical joke or not, but no one tended to pretend practical jokes on suicidal kids, because after all, just a confession of how you felt inside would change from a human being to a head case within seconds.

But it was then that Dallon actually decided to pay attention to 'Mrs Clit's name plaque: Wendy Elizabeth Teresa Clit - this fucking woman's name was motherfucking W.E.T. Clit: this was not for real, but from the stern gaze that Mrs C. was giving him, he couldn't help but hide his smirk and let her continue with whatever she was attempting to fill his head with right now.

"I'd like to play a game, Dallon." Dallon gave her a shrug, having been unaware that his therapist was jigsaw, but whatever, this would get interesting then at the very least then. "I'd like you to remember yourself waking up this morning and tell me what the first thing you thought of was."

And really, Dallon was just eternally thankful that he'd somehow found it impossible to get morning wood in a hospital bed.

"Breathing." His answer was vague and somewhat unhelpful, but with people like W.E.T. Clit, you just couldn't let them know that you were too keen, but the stern look in her eyes had Dallon continuing, and soon giving far more detail than he could ever possibly imagine. "Breathing in and out and making sure I was alive, and then my surroundings: count the walls, count the people- the time, and watch the clock for at least a minute, and lie there for at least a minute to ensure I remembered who I was, and then, then, I sat up and everything felt into rhythm, the day 'began' and I thought about Brendon and what he means to me, and how I haven't messed everything up you, and I thought about what would have happened if I'd died and how he'd feel right now, because everyone seems to think Brendon's heartless, but he's really not- he's not 'misunderstood': he's not the protagonist from a teenage vampire novel, he's just different around other people, I guess... anyway... I don't think he would have been okay without me, but he would, because he's Brendon, well not properly, he just would have been his usual, but I don't think his usual is at all okay..."

Dallon found himself looking directly at W.E.T. Clit and realising that he'd said entirely too much.

"You have a lot to get off your chest then?" She gave a patronising chuckle and a slight raise of her eyebrows. "Care to enlighten me as to exactly who Brendon is then?"

"My b- friend." And that was absolutely the most sinful case of no homo that Dallon had ever committed. "He has a massive forehead and it's almost distracting at times, but then again, he's kind of got a big head so that must be where he keeps it."

"And how did you two meet?" Dallon wasn't entirely sure as to when this had changed from a therapist session to an interview about his lack of a lovelife, but still he persisted to answer her questions, because there was something about talking and talking freely that he just couldn't help but appreciate, even if a cynical woman called Mrs Clit was noting down his every word.

"I was with my boyfriend at the time and well, he was there and-... and... I'm gay... and I don't want you to say anything about even though you want to be because everyone's already said enough, and well, I want to talk about Gee, he's my ex-boyfriend, well kind of, it wasn't a serious relationship, he'd ended things badly with his long term boyfriend and... I was the window of opportunity and he's older than me and cuter than me, and Brendon was just some guy I vaguely knew of, and then there were a few nights we spent alone and I definitely think he’s at least my best friend, perhaps even over Spencer, although that's not fair on Spencer, because I've known him forever, like since Elementary School, but, Spencer isn't the one I know that's in the hospital waiting room right now, and just for a chance to see me."

"So, Brendon's your new 'boyfriend' then?" Her lips seemed to move awkwardly around the word 'boyfriend', but less of hatred and more of a lack of familiarity.

"No." Dallon let out a sigh, throwing his head back a little, because seriously, fuck this. "We held hands once I guess but nothing more, and its awkward because he's Brendon, and he cheated on people, but I feel like he's different with me, and it feels like that's bad news and that he's bad news, but maybe everyone does deserve a second chance?"

"I don't think you should risk getting yourself seriously upset again, especially with what's happened, but it's your life, and you certainly seem to be fond of him, but I wouldn't, not in your condition." And Dallon thought fuck her, because why the fuck was he listening to the opinion of and even considering the advice of a W.E.T. Clit.

"I need to go to the toilet." She looked unconvinced, but she was obliged to let him go, and Dallon slipped out into the corridor, and ignored the sign for the toilets, making his way into the waiting room, and grabbing Brendon by the hand before pulling him with him as the two made their way out of the hospital itself.

Brendon was confused, but laughing like an idiot as they made their way out of the car park and only quietened down as they reached the footpath by the highway.

"You weren't allowed out were you?" He could read it off the panicked expression upon Dallon's face, and really he loved this, because the guy had been locked up in a hospital for entirely too long now.

"No." Dallon shook his head, slowing a little to catch his breath.

"Did you know I was going to be there for you?" Brendon was really just curious, well perhaps not entirely, but... but... Dallon was cute and that was kind of killing him inside.

"Yeah. I did."

"Why?"

"Because I told you not to be, and there's never one instance ever that you've ever listened to anything I've said." Brendon was a little taken a back by that: unsure just how to interpret this. "But maybe it's for the best, because I'm not thinking in the right mind anyway... I'm fucked up and suicidal, a head case, and it's okay, it's really fucking okay as long as I'm told exactly how to live my life and what not to do for fear of making myself upset."

"You can't live like that. What do you want to do right now, most of all?"

Silence, eye contact: awkward at best, and then, just like that, Dallon, thought 'fuck it, I nearly died, didn't I? This can't be worse' and kissed Brendon Urie on the lips.

-

\- 

Mikey sat alone in his bedroom. It was an awkward kind of sad that just lingered: it most definitely made itself known, but it by no means made itself important enough to be noticed and adhered to on a regular basis.

He was just sort of unhappy, and even pathetically so, and perhaps you could even be as crude enough as to say that not much was going his Mikey Way, but that wasn't the kind of humour a sad kid sat with his knees pulled up to his chest would appreciate.

He wanted to say that it wasn't Ray.

But it was.

Things weren't working, Ray didn't like keeping this a secret: he'd had enough or something like that, and Mikey had pulled the give me one more chance line, and Ray had gone too far, spitting something in his face about Pete, and they both knew that things had gone too far instantly.

Mikey left: storming home silently and turning his phone off as he came to realise that not only had things gone too far in their argument, but in their 'relationship' entirely: it was kissing and sometimes more, and 'I love you's uttered to tear stained faces, and never smiles - it was desperation, it was the emergency parachute that caught you a moment before death: it wasn't permanent, it wasn't intentional, it was temporary, it was back up, because the main thing had failed.

And Mikey felt like 'the main thing' wasn't exactly a particularly respectful name to refer to his dead ex-boyfriend by, but still he did, because it wasn't like Pete could hear him. He was very much alone right now, and very fucking vulnerable, and even stupid, perhaps, but not stupid enough to grab the shotgun, or open the medicine cabinet- Mikey worked in small doses of things.

A small dose of sadness: a small dose of stupid, a small dose of love, a small dose of everything, and a small dose of nothing.

Something.

But never quite enough.

And that was Mikey Way, and all he'd ever been: it was inescapable, especially not with Pete dead, because Pete had been his only hope of breaking free of that curse, but of course, he was alone now, and now only crying harder, louder, and fucking painting the picture of the pathetic little faggot he'd been taught to hate.

That was always how it was: he'd grown to be the boy he'd grown to hate - it was tragic, and a curse of sorts - perhaps even something that deserved a fairytale ending, but if Mikey knew anything, he knew that he most certainly was not going to get one.

He most certainly didn't deserve it, after all.

Perhaps now he began to concoct some form of true sympathy for Gee, but of course, only out of empathy, because it wasn't his problem, unless it really was his problem too, because up until Pete, and how his life had fucking changed completely, he was fucking fine with the bible bashing and the fag hating and the blaming Gee for everything he ever was.

Gee didn't deserve it at all, and Mikey almost felt as if he owed him penance of sorts, and really, that was the most biblical thing he'd ever done, even in his many fucking years of devout fucking 'Christianity'.

Apologising didn't cut it now, because apologising didn't matter, because Gee was okay: he got out of this house and was now free to be himself with Frank and dress up like a fucking girl if it made him happy, but Mikey was perhaps just serving his time for his sins under the scrutiny of his parents.

And just like that, the metaphor got the better of him, and he almost started to liken the curtains on his window to bars akin to the ones found in prison cells.

He wondered if he should call Ray: he wondered if he should call Gee, but he couldn't muster the fucking effort, because the only person worth calling right now was Pete, and Mikey was left with nothing more than the omnipresent reality that he just couldn't.

He was still in love with the boy who'd been dead for months: Ray was just a cover, and Mikey felt horrible to say it - to admit the truth that he'd fucking used the guy, but there was little else to do other than sit here and wallow in his self pity, although that did seem like an awfully good option to Mikey right then.

He just wanted Pete back, and more than fucking anything, like for real, he'd do some freaky voodoo shit from Supernatural that always got you killed, and all for Pete, but he couldn't: he fucking couldn't, even if he wanted to.

And nothing hurt quite like that.

Because the hurt never really went away: Ray had just sort of subdued it- distracted him - it had most certainly always been there, and Mikey hated to conclude that he'd only just began to realise that now.

He felt like doing something stupid: this was the kind of pity ache that called for drastic and desperate measures, but two wrongs didn't make a right, and Mikey certainly didn't believe in heaven enough to do it for Pete.

But the dilemma lay in the fact that Mikey just didn't know what to do: he could sit here alone and cry, that was for sure, but it didn't help, it would never help, and Mikey knew it, and fucking hated himself for it.

Mikey hated himself like he really did deserve it.

Mikey hated himself like the faggot he was.

Mikey hated himself like the freak he was.

Mikey hated himself like the person he was.

Mikey hated himself like his parents would.

When they figured out the truth, that was.

He was absolutely no exception to Gee, and he knew that now - it was nothing to silently smirk about like he had done before, and as he heard the front door slam shut, signalling his mother's arrival home, Mikey knew exactly what he had to do.

He ran down the stairs: two at a time, and almost disappointed when he didn't trip and fall to his fucking death.

Because then it would be alright: then it could be an accident, and it would all fade out like the dimmer switch on a light bulb, and he'd never have to open his eyes and face the world again.

But he found himself face to face with a smile as he reached the foot of the stairs: a smile from his mother - one he didn't deserve, and one he'd ensured that she changed her mind about.

And with two fucking simple words: two fucking simple words that had the power to destroy everything.

They shouldn't, of course they shouldn't.

Mikey knew that, but did he know that now.

The seventeen year old looked his mother in the eyes for what might be the last time: proceeding to make the same simple mistake as his brother - existing.

"I'm gay."

-

Frank had almost forgotten how nice it was just to hang out with Gee.

Frank had almost forgotten just how much he loved the guy, but to say the least, this was an awfully nice reminder: Bert wasn't home - he'd fucked off somewhere with some girl neither Frank nor Gee knew the name of, nor cared to, but that was all entirely irrelevant with the two grinning at each other like giddy fifteen year olds.

And well, Frank couldn't help but be like this, because he just hadn't done this in months. Of course, it wasn't quite the same for Gee, but they were choosing to ignore that now, because well, the way Gee was pinning Frank against the mattress and kissing his lips until they bruised was far more entertaining.

And those little moans Gee was letting out? The best thing Frank had ever heard.

"Baby?" Gee murmured, pouting in something akin to disappointment as Frank pushed him away a little.

Frank couldn't help but just lie there and grin at his boyfriend, just for a moment, though, because he doubted that he could keep his hands off him for all that much longer.

"Too many clothes." Frank whined, his head not exactly in 'coherent sentences' mode right now, and much more in the 'let me near your dick right fucking now' mode.

"Y-Yeah." Gee smirked, pulling Frank's shirt off, and leaving Frank to do the same for him - it was kind of cute, whatever, and Gee was most definitely more than just kind of blushing as Frank made a move for his boxers, because if his boyfriend was coming over, Gee had most definitely not bothered with putting pants on, or a skirt for that matter.

Gee really did like wearing skirts, but when he was with Frank, he preferred nothing at all.

With the two of them naked and still kind of giddy, because it was almost like Frank had forgotten how to do this, like for real, he'd watched more than enough porn, but it was so different for real, and Gee, of course, found that stupidly amusing.

"Not gonna be able to fuck me real good now, are you, baby?" And a wink that left Frank just a little overwhelmed, and of course, rightly so.

"I-I... I can..." Frank was probably just as convincing as Brendon Urie trying to tell someone he had a small forehead.

"Sure you can, baby." Gee giggled, pushing Frank down against the mattress again. "Prove it - get me pinned down, get me all good and submissive for you, how about that, Frankie?"

"Well, you're not exactly making it easy for me, are you?" Frank whined as Gee grabbed his wrists and pinned them down above his head.

"No, baby, I'm really not." He giggled a little, his lips going straight for Frank's neck in the least straight manner known to mankind. "Wanna know why?" He asked, pulling away, if only just for a moment.

"W-Why... G-Gee... I-I-I...." Overwhelmed was an overstatement by this point.

Gee leaned in closer, whispering his words into Frank's ear. "Because maybe, just maybe, I wanna fuck you."

And Frank's eyes went wide: shock, and ever further overwhelmed - it was new to him, to say the least, and Frank wasn't entirely sure just how he'd feel about having a cock in his ass, but of course, you had to try everything before you knew whether you liked it, didn't you?

"So baby? What do you say?" Gee pulled away, and sat up in the silence, glancing to the packet of cigarettes on the dresser and wondering just how long he could possibly keep up the 'I never slept with Bert McCracken' facade, because maybe Gee just couldn't think about being fucked without thinking about Bert.

And that guy should be the last thing on his mind, but as Gee glanced back to his boyfriend and received nothing but silence, he stood up, only to be taken entirely by surprise as he reached his feet.

"Yes." His voice resonated, echoing throughout Gee's head for entirely far too long, before the twenty five year old turned to face his boyfriend. "But only if you tell me what's wrong - there's something on your mind, and you're trying to hide it, but I can see it, and topping... this isn't like you?"

Because when it came to the frerard pizza, everyone knew that Frank Iero was the cheesy topping and that Gerard Way was the base, and sometimes even with a stuffed crust - although he was usually stuffed with cock, as opposed to cheese.

"So, yeah..." Gee let out a sigh, sitting down beside Frank, practically killing himself regarding just how the fuck he was supposed to explain this mess. "I... well... other people when we were broken up... and... sometimes bottoming wasn't that great... sometimes they were kind of horrible about it."

"I wouldn't be horrible about it." Frank promised, cringing a little as he came to remember that Gee had actually slept with other people when they'd broke up.

"I know, baby, I'm just... fucked up, and you know that... hey, maybe I could ride you... cause then I'd kinda be in control, but- I just- fuck... you don't like this... I'm sorry."

"N-No... it's fine, I haven't actually done this in far too long: you can't go wrong here." Frank blushed a little, almost feeling embarrassed about it.

"Alright then, baby, the lube's in the drawer over there, you wanna lube yourself up for me?" Gee grinned, gesturing towards the drawers beside the bed. "I'll prep myself - it's fine."

"What if I want to do it?" Frank pouted, leaving Gerard to get just a little agitated.

"I don't have to go anywhere near your dick, Iero, be a good boy and do as you're told." And with that, Frank swallowed hard, and on the subject of things that were hard...

Trying to fuck your boyfriend when the front door slammed open, signalling that Bert McFuckingCockblock was home.

-

And from that kiss, things could go nothing but fantastic, and Dallon wasn't sure if he was on a buzz from whatever medicine they'd pumped into his brains in hospital, but he didn't particularly care, and was far more focused upon Brendon's hand held tightly in his and the way the two ran through the outskirts of the park until they were in the woods on the edge of town, and utterly lost in them, because neither of them could muster the strength to care about anything other than one another right then and there.

"I feel like I'm in a painting, or a photograph: something you'd put on a postcard on something." Dallon announced as the two finally came to a halt at something that somewhat resembled a clearing. "This is just so beautiful that is doesn’t even seem real." He caught his breath against a tree trunk and caught Brendon’s eyes, who grinned at him in response, sitting down on a tree stump and crossing his legs slightly.

"Kind of like you then." Brendon said after a few moments of silence: like he'd spent entirely too long pondering his words and the affect they could possibly have, because Brendon couldn't help but care about Dallon, and when he cared, he cared entirely too much - all or nothing or some other bullshit like that.

Dallon blushed in response, with no say in it as he turned away from Brendon in something that vaguely resembled embarrassment. "You too." He added after a moment, again, like Brendon, with consideration: they were both entirely too careful with each other, and entirely too careless with the world around them, and it was absolutely the worst balance ever, but Brendon kind of couldn't stop smiling, and there was no chance in hell that he was giving this up.

This. This is what had made hours spent in hospital waiting rooms worthwhile: this was what had made everything worthwhile.

"Can we just run away and live out here forever or something? Will we even be missed?" Dallon let out a deep sigh: glancing between Brendon's face and the sky: clouds and shades of blue that nothing but nature could ever replicate - it was perfection, or something very close to it, at the very least.

"I wouldn't be, but you most definitely would be missed: you have Spencer, and Joe, and Andy, and you have your parents, you have both your parents, and you have the hospital, and a therapist's office you walked out of." Brendon didn't mean to bring Dallon down, but reality was inevitable, but then again, that most definitely didn't mean that they couldn't just put it off for a little longer. "We don't have to care about the people who miss us though, it would be horrible, but we could just run away and live together: I wouldn't mind, but I have no one tying me down.... to this town, except you, whereas you have the whole fucking world waiting on your every breath: don't let me influence you into something that would be bad for you."

"They only care so much because I nearly died... without this hospital mess then my parents wouldn't give one single shit at all, and my friends would just ignore me, I mean, Joe only wanted to know because he couldn't help his curiosity, and... you... you always care, even if it's only been a while that we've known each other, you've still cared about me more than anyone has in my life."

"I suspect that that may be a slight overstatement." Brendon raised his eyebrows a little, as he gestured for Dallon to join him on the tree stump he was sat on, of course, only to find that there wasn't nearly enough space for the both of them, which resulted in Dallon sitting between Brendon's legs, and the two pretty much cuddling right then and there, and it was all too soon, but Dallon felt like he could die any day and didn't seem to care at all, and Brendon just needed someone to care for, and someone to care for him in return.

They worked perfectly for one another: pieces in a jigsaw perhaps, but they weren't permanent: people changing like the seasons, and soon enough they'd find that they didn't fit together at all. It was inevitable, but of course, inevitable, didn't mean that it had to happen right now, did it?

"It's not. You don't know: you're not me." Dallon gave Brendon a look of sincerity and promise that he had to believe.

"Okay." Brendon let out a sigh against the back of Dallon's neck, causing Dallon to blush a little. "It's your choice then: who we are and where we go from here, but whatever you choose I'll be by your side, because I care, and I want to hold your hand until I break my fucking wrist."

"Poetic." Dallon commented with a small smirk, and Brendon blushed like hell, but neither of them cared.

"Isn't it just?" He added with a grin, leaning his head on Dallon's shoulder. "If I wrote poetry, I'd write a poem for you."

"That means very little when you don't write poetry, don't you think?" Dallon raised his eyebrows a little, but found himself appreciating the gesture nonetheless, because this was Brendon, and he wasn't the kind of guy to give out compliments like they were nothing.

"No, it means the whole fucking world." And there was something in Brendon's voice that convinced Dallon that this wasn't a joke at all, and of course, silence ensued, but a thoughtful one, at the very least.

"Did I tell you the name of my therapist?" Dallon asked after a moment, his face breaking into a small grin.

"Nope." Brendon shook his head in response.

"Mrs Clit-" And Brendon broke out into hysterical laughter and well, Dallon hadn’t even finished yet. "Wendy Elizabeth Teresa Clit. W.E.T. Clit, if you prefer."

"That's ridiculous." Brendon continued to laugh a little, reaching around Dallon's front, and grabbing his hand, and just sort of holding it in his lap. "Like my proposal for you to run away with me?"

"It sounds like something I'm going to regret later, but I really want to, because I really like you, and hate everyone else in this fucking town, and I sound like a pop punk song right now, but I mean every word."

"It's your choice, and your choice entirely."

"I know." Dallon let out a sigh, knowing that it was the kind of thing that Mrs Clit would tell him most certainly not to do, and just like that, he stood up, holding tight to Brendon's hand, and pulling him to his feet too.

"What?" Brendon blushed a little.

"Let's go, let's just fucking go: I don't even care, Brendon, fuck it- I love you."

"I love you too."

And that was all the convincing that they needed, except perhaps the beers Brendon had downed earlier this morning, and the medication that ensured Dallon's head kept spinning when he moved too quickly, but other than that, it was just three little fucking words.

-

Patrick had just left.

He knew he shouldn't have, but for the first time ever, he allowed himself to be stupid, and simply block everything out: he ignored the way people would feel in recognition of his absence and he ignored the prediction of every hushed whisper in response to what he could possibly do now.

There were a lot of things Patrick Stump could do right now, and all of them were overreactions by far, but actions always spoke louder than words and Patrick couldn't even really remember why he'd bothered to start talking again in the first place.

Dallon was alright, yes, but Pete wasn't: Pete would never be, and this was just the reminder of incompetence: the way Joe knew what was going on with Dallon and failed to do anything, and then just what that could have resulted in, and in turn, the way things had been exactly the same for him and Pete, because Patrick had known.

Patrick had always known, and Patrick always would: he knew things, remember - of course, how could anyone forget? Forget about poor Patrick Stump and the way his pace quickened at every sound: his every motion in panic as he now found himself almost sprinting to the top of the hill at the outskirts of town.

He needed to be alone.

Perhaps he needed Pete right now, but Patrick had learned by now that a headstone could never possibly compare to flesh and blood, and yet still, he visited and whispered words to the boy who could no longer hear them, and he gave love to the boy who could no longer feel it - not that Pete had felt it much in life, either.

It wasn't Pete's fault though: it really wasn't, and Patrick knew that it wasn't his own either, but the words that reinforced that belief certainly weren't his own, but the voices of friends and family that echoed around his head for weeks on end, and with no hope of ending.

Patrick wasn't sure what he believed in regards to death and the afterlife, and religion, and all that: everything that everyone said was important, but in reality, just wasn't. He'd been raised Christian to an extent, and he'd been to church a few times, but not regularly - it was just 'yeah, God and heaven and that' just casually at the back of his mind: never really questioned but never really all that important.

But Patrick just couldn't help but feel like Pete was watching down on him from heaven at all: he felt alone, and he felt no worth in the churchyard and more flowers on a gravestone, and the friends that told him it would all be okay, because Pete wasn't with him, not even in 'spirit' - whatever that meant, and if killing himself had dragged Pete down to hell, then Patrick was certain that this wasn't the kind of God that he wanted to believe in.

He wasn't over it.

But to even consider the possibility was nothing but foolish, and he knew that now.

At least, he was alone, and at least the trees and vegetation a top the hill ensured that he was sufficiently hidden from the rest of the town- the rest of the world even, but still he wasn't alone enough, because secretly, Patrick Stump didn't want to be alone at all.

There were a lot of choices he could make right now, and a whole load of mistakes in consequence, but he felt no motivation even for the most meaningful and drastic of measures: he was uncertain, he was the one door in the corner of the house that never quite closed: he was the draughty room unfrequented by others, he was the window left open in forgetfulness, he was the apology scribbled on note paper and stuck to the kitchen counter before someone walked out forever, and he was the trash can that it was thrown into.

But if Patrick knew anything, and well, he knew a lot, he knew that he wasn't the cellphone number dialled thousands of times, he wasn't the steps paced back and forth in the hallway in an impatient wait for the front door to open and for someone to come home, he wasn't the photograph moved from the frame on the mantel piece to the wall of a police station, he wasn't the chair left empty at the table, and he wasn't the boy who never came home.

He could love Pete, but he could never be like him, and never should he have ever even aspired to be, but aspiration was nothing but a joke, and still Patrick wasn't laughing: he wanted to laugh, though - he hadn't laugh in a long time now, and neither had Pete, but of course, you couldn't laugh when you were dead.

Patrick wondered what would have happened if Pete never would have died.

Patrick wondered what would have happened if he'd taken his place.

Patrick wondered if he was going crazy.

And most of all, Patrick wondered just whether the shadow in the corner of his eye was really there or not.

It was a dilemma, and he was stuck in freezing still not to let the shadow know he was there, but if the shadow already knew... Patrick ended up getting to his feet, and more out of compulsion than conscious thought.

It didn't go away, and Patrick almost thought himself childish to think it would, but it was most definitely there, and most definitely 'human'.

At least, that's what his conscious had been tricked into thinking, because chances were that there was nothing there at all, but still there could be: there always could be, but logic called for denial, and Patrick was far too stunned into silence to even consider weighing the probabilities of several different outcomes right now.

The shadow- the figure... whatever it was, stepped forward: reality around it almost tearing a little as it did so, and still, as the thing continued to walk, Patrick was silent and frozen up the spot, and not doing as logic or well, even just common sense would suggest and running back down into town as fast as he could.

But somehow he found himself more scared of what Ryan was going to say than what this thing could possibility say or do to him.

It was crazy and Patrick highly considered the possibility that he was just dreaming right now, but to wake up, and to wake up into a perfect world was far more than unlikely, because for this to be just a nightmare, the nightmare had been going on for months now: from just right about when Pete died.

Patrick wanted to wake up.

And if this was indeed a nightmare, by the time the thing got him, he would, but the shadow stopped a couple of metres before him, condemning him to whatever kind of hell he was stuck in.

"Say something. I hated it when you stopped talking." The thing had no lips to move, yet sound, and words concocted themselves into sentences: almost appearing as if the thing had placed the words directly into Patrick's head, and was talking from inside his own brain, in fact.

"I-" Patrick couldn't hear his words aloud, but it didn't seem to matter.

"It almost killed me, again."

-


	37. Brendon And Dallon Fuck On A Swing

It was a gig, a show, something like that anyway: the crowd wasn't exactly packed, but the big ass grins on the faces of the four girls made up for everything, and well, Sarah's voice was fucking wrecked: she'd put everything into this, and it was showing as the band came off stage and the venue (a shitty little bar or something) filled the some sort of applause and the low hum of conversation once again.

Backstage, Lindsey and Jamia were making out against an amp, and Kitty was muttering some sort of friendly insult in their direction, which Lindsey responded to with a sly raise of her middle finger, before wrapping her arm back around Jamia's waist as she pulled the young girl closer to her, deepening the kiss and leaving Kitty to make her way out into the venue: after some form of alcohol and someone to flirt with.

Kitty was casual like that: she cared, but only when it mattered - she never fell head over heels, and she never fucked the world up completely, everything was casual and important, and in a way, Sarah found herself jealous of the drummer as she made her way to the bar and downed a shot of vodka or something.

Sarah found herself sort of distant after the show: it was good, she reckoned, and she was smiling, she reckoned, but she felt kind of weird on the inside - maybe it her voice: tired out and overused, because maybe she'd given the small bar audience her all. This was their biggest show so far, and it really did mean something to her, but she felt odd inside, with no girlfriend to make out with backstage, or no desire to drink until she woke up in someone else's bed the next morning.

Sarah just found herself stood almost awkwardly against the wall of the venue as the stereo was slowly turned up and the majority of the people here soon forgot about the music entirely. Gee and Frank were here somewhere, but they were here for Lindsey and Jamia, who were more than a little preoccupied right now.

If Sarah was honest, this band and the other girls in it were her everything. The shitty job at the comic book store was nothing in comparison, and the friendships at school that were made more for the sake of company that anything else couldn't even possibly match up to the vibe giving her all, and doing what felt right with her three best friends in the world.

Sarah kind of missed something though.

It was odd, because she didn't exactly frequent sadness, but of course, she was a person after all, and the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach and the ache of her tear ducts was of course inevitable, but she felt all too agitated that it had to be now, because right now, she didn't want to feel sad.

She was supposed to be happy, wasn't she?

The band had done great: they'd gotten applause, and well, it was pretty cool, and she felt pretty cool, but kind of distant too... sort of like this wasn't at all real, and that any second now she'd wake up in her bed at home and find herself condemned to the meaningless life of school, pointless friends, and parents that wanted the exact opposite to what she needed.

Sarah felt kind of alone, though, and she hated every little fact that seemed to stitch itself together in an attempt to justify this fact. But, she couldn't help it, and she couldn't help herself: she hadn't spoken to Brendon Urie in almost a month now, and she couldn't help but feel like missing him.

She didn't still have feelings for him - she wasn't quite that stupid, after all, but she certainly missed his presence, because for the duration of their relationship, when she'd been content and oblivious in the belief that she was the only one for him, she had indeed been really fucking happy, and that was a feeling she knew she wouldn't be quick to forget.

Maybe she was just bitterly single, and maybe she should follow Kitty's example and head to the bar in search of anyone to flirt with too, but, that was Kitty, and Sarah was the girl that met guys in comic book stores not bars, and hell, her parents thought she was at a study group sleepover right now, and not a bar that Lindsey had gotten her a fake I.D. just to be able to get into.

She wondered how Brendon was doing right now: she couldn't help it, after all, with the lack of contact between the two of them, she'd sort of fallen back into her own life - entirely separate from his. She wondered if he was still single, or back with Ryan, or dating someone else, but no matter what she suspected, she'd really have never guessed that Brendon Urie had 'kidnapped' Dallon Weekes from the hospital and runaway with him to the next town over.

She felt like her existence was almost painfully depressing: pressed up against the back wall of a bar, her cellphone held loosely in her hand for the sake of faking interaction as opposed to actual practical use of the device, but then, a familiar face walked in: hood pulled up over his head, but Sarah jumped a little - knowing him from the moment they made eye contact across the room.

The guy let out a sigh, pulling his hood down and joining her at the side of the bar. "What is this? I can't get over our ex-boyfriend support club? Because that's the vibe I'm getting from you right now, and that's the vibe I'm giving off right now."

"Our ex-boyfriend." Sarah scoffed, pocketing her cellphone as she turned to face Ryan Ross.

"Well, he is, isn't he?" Ryan gave a shrug: he didn't talk to Sarah a lot, but he had no beef with her: she was just a girl who'd had similar experiences with Brendon Urie's dick as him.

"I guess." Sarah gave a vaguely uninterested shrug, throwing her gaze back across the bar and noticing Jamia and Lindsey appear from somewhere, with Frank and Gee at their side, and Sarah couldn't help but pray there hadn't been some weird freaky foursome going on there, because if there had been, she definitely needed to start drinking, and she definitely needed to start drinking right fucking now.

"You heard much about him recently?" Ryan asked, following Sarah's gaze across the bar and eyeing the 'foursome' suspiciously, but choosing with his better judgement not to make any kind of awkward comment upon it.

"Nope. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, though." Sarah pulled her gaze away from the 'foursome', turning back to Ryan and his almost irritatingly neutral expression.

"Well, he's got a new boyfriend from what I've heard: Dallon Weekes - not a bad looking guy, but whatever, that's not the point. Dallon nearly killed himself a week or so ago, and yeah, guy got put into hospital, and Brendon practically never left his fucking bedside, and then, what's next? Both Brendon and Dallon are missing. They've runaway together, this is some fucked up Bonnie and Clyde shit."

"So you're saying they're going to go off and commit bank robbery now or something?" Sarah raised her eyebrows a little: not necessarily entirely convinced of the truth behind Ryan's story.

"Perhaps more Romeo and Juliet then, but whatever, Dallon's going to fucking die or something without his medication from the hospital for sure, and Brendon's not going to take that well. They're fucking idiots."

"And you show no sympathy?" Sarah asked, still utterly unconvinced.

"I'm just glad I dumped him before that could be me."

"So it's Brendon's fault now, is it?"

"Well, I doubt it was Dallon's idea, anyway, it's not my job to be fucking Mother Theresa and save him from his own idiocy." And with that, Ryan made his way to the bar, leaving Sarah to wonder just how much of that story had been concocted with the assistance of whatever alcohol was already present in his system

Sarah wasn't like Lindsey, Sarah wasn't like Jamia, Sarah wasn't like Kitty, and Sarah most certainly wasn't like Ryan.

And she proved that as she pulled her cellphone out once again, dialling Brendon Urie's number, because they guy was an asshole, but he by no means deserved the fate he was condemning himself to, or perhaps, she was simply the Mother Theresa for the victims of Brendon Urie's charm, and was doing this all in a desperate attempt to save the guy she'd never even met.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was just the right thing to do.

-

It wasn't dark, it wasn't light: the sky was just that weird kind of blue grey shade that was dark enough for street lights to turn on, but still light enough to easily navigate your way home whilst feeling safe.

It would have been different if it was dark: a pitch black sky, because everyone knows that it's easy to misplace shadows and let an overactive imagination take over in the dead of night, but with the blue grey skies that allow you to see pretty much everything, no?

You're not supposed to see things in the light: you're not supposed to rub your eyes, and feel that they haven't gone, but are just hiding.

It was unnerving, to say the least, and it wasn't the things you saw that scared you like this, it was yourself, and the possibly of insanity, and just what the fuck was going on in your mind.

Patrick Stump waked home twice as fast that night.

It hadn't been a one off, and even if it had been, he doubted that he'd at all be in any hurry to forget it, but this was the kind of thing that screeched about insanity, and to put it lightly, this was the kind of thing he couldn't even ask his friends advice upon and simply for the fear that they'd declare him insane and lock him up in a psychiatric ward or something.

Patrick wasn't insane, though, or at least he reckoned he was doing a pretty good job of convincing himself otherwise, at least for the time being anyway. The guy had never been on medication, not even for allergies or anything as trivial as that, and Patrick's sole ailment lay in the form of his need for glasses, but that was absolutely nothing in comparison to this.

It just didn't make sense; Patrick wasn't the kind of guy who took drunks or even drank, or well, fucking anything... he just couldn't think of any logical reason as to why an apparition vaguely resembling his dead best friend kept following him around.

It wasn't Pete though; because Pete was dead and Patrick was in a last ditch attempt to desperately cling to his sanity and his beliefs about life, death, and the end of all things. Pete was six feet under in a graveyard across town and not the thing in the corner of his eyes that followed him as he continued to make his way down the road.

He should be getting home- fuck, he really should, but Pete, or whatever the hell he kept seeing, wouldn't allow him to sleep tonight for sure: he was freaking out and he doubted he could even look his parents in the eye like this.

They knew he'd been a little shaky ever since Pete had died, because he had died, okay? But, he was getting better now: everyone had thought so, and Patrick had smiled at himself in the mirror every morning as he reminded himself of that fact, but he knew for sure that hallucinations didn't allude to recovery in the slightest.

Fuck, this wasn't fair, but neither was Pete's death, and Patrick needed to talk to the one person in this whole damn town who'd possibly even consider understanding him: the one person who he could possibly fathom missing Pete just this much.

And okay, Mikey Way and Patrick Stump weren't exactly the best of friends, but there was nothing between them anymore, and Patrick practically forced a smile onto his lips as he made his way towards Mikey's front door, pressing his finger down on the doorbell and shaking a little with nerves, but hell, at least this tidal wave of anxiety gave him a brief moments to forget about the figure in the corner of his eye.

An evidently sleep deprived, blonde haired woman opened the door and looked Patrick up and down with an unwelcoming scowl. "Hello?" She put on a fake welcoming accent to greet him and Patrick didn't buy it for one fucking minute at all.

"I'm looking for Mikey?" He blushed a little, praying he hadn't gotten the wrong house.

"Doesn't live here anymore-" She muttered it under her breath, almost like a secret, almost like a curse, almost like she was cursing him.

"What?"

"Mikey doesn't live here anymore because he's a filthy fucking faggot." Patrick practically froze up on the spot, because fuck, this was not a nice woman, to say the least. "He's probably gone off with that bad influence fag brother of his, if you're really that interested- but you look like a nice boy: you don't want to associate with him-"

"That's your son." Patrick lost it right then and right there, and mostly because he couldn't help but reminded of the way Pete's dad had reacted to his son's death and his note and the fuck- the whole fucking mess that had become Patrick's life. "You're supposed to love him."

"He should have thought about that before becoming a faggot then."

"He was who he is from the very moment he was born, and don't you forget it-" The door was slammed in Patrick's face at that, and with a sigh, he made his way back onto the street, glancing at his own home, and considering the sleepless night with the vision still present even when he closed his eyes, and he found himself comparing it to going off in search of Mikey and some clarity and some understanding.

It was late enough already, and Patrick didn't even know where Mikey's brother lived, hell, he didn't even have Mikey's phone number, but Frank most definitely did, and Patrick Stump found himself sat on a bench at the side of the road as he sent Frank Iero a brief text about Mikey and how he could contact him.

Frank responded with shock, clearly not having been told that Mikey had even been kicked out yet, but he sent Patrick the address regardless, adding that he'd probably see him there.

And with a sigh, and a glance to the vision that faded away when he looked straight at it, Patrick Stump made his way across town in search of a boy he barely knew for the sake of answers and comfort that a boy who'd just been kicked out of home by one asshole of a mother could hardly provide.

But as Patrick rubbed his eyes, and the vision didn't seem to fade at all, he came to conclude that he was running out of alternatives here, because in fact, the vision seemed to be growing stronger the longer it stayed in the corner of his eye: the longer Patrick thought about it, and the more Patrick came to accept its presence.

He bit his lip, inhaling and exhaling in quick sequence and promising himself that this wasn't really Pete, and that he wasn't really there, despite how much Patrick fucking needed him to be.

Because Patrick hadn't been getting better, he'd simply been getting better at lying to himself.

-

Gee Way slammed his fist into the wall for what was close to the seventh time that night.

It was his mother, and it was his young brother with his things in a backpack and the door closed behind him, and it was Bert McCracken who'd only just stopped watching porn to go and see just why the wall was taking so much physical abuse.

"She kicked you out too?" Bert ignored Gee and made eye contact with the younger Way brother, fucking smiling at him, which most definitely caught the whole fucking world by surprise.

"Y-Yeah..." Mikey nodded gingerly, glancing towards his older brother with a look that vaguely translated as 'why the fuck is this guy being nice to me?'.

"Bert, are you sober?" Gee looked the guy up and down in disbelief, his eyes practically falling from their sockets as his housemate nodded.

"We ran out of drink, you know? Didn't buy anymore: it's you that drinks the most of it anyway, and I'd rather have no alcohol and more money than have some alcohol and have you drinking away the majority of my money. And Bob's probably dead or something because I called him to get some weed or something and there was no response after like six calls, and it's Bob: he picks up within six seconds, regardless of the circumstances."

Gee nodded slowly, kind of glad that Bert happened to sober just when his little brother had been forced to move in, but eternally cringing because from the look on Mikey's face, he knew that Mikey was definitely going to ask him about the whole alcohol thing later.

"So, that's Mikey, isn't it?" He turned to Gee, furrowing his eyebrows as he struggled to remember just what this kid was actually called.

"Yeah, I'm Mikey." Mikey answered before Gee could, because he knew that if he was going to live with this guy he was going to have to grow the balls to fucking talk to him.

"So, Gee, he's sleeping in the spare room, I assume, I mean, someone's going to have to move that fucking table that Bob shat on once out of there first, and yeah, bagsy not me-"

"I'm going to need your help to move it, you know, Mikey's scrawny as fuck, come on, look at him- no offense, but do you really want to move a table that some guy shat on once?" Mikey shook his head in a firm 'no'. "Come on, Bert, look, I promise I won't drink your vodka for a week or whatever if you help me with this."

"Fine." 

And with that, Mikey Way found himself stood almost awkwardly in the hallway of his new home, watching as Gee and Bert opened a door and with great difficulty, pulled out a really sketchy looking fucking table.

He pulled his cellphone out, seeing that he had a new message from Frank, well, like five, and one from Ray, but he'd been making a point as to not read that for several days now. 

Mikey didn't even get a chance to consider reading the messages from Frank, before the doorbell was ringing and Gee was groaning from down the hall. "Mikey, just get it, will you?"

"Okay." He called back to his brother, before letting out a sigh, and pulling open the front door, and finding himself just a little surprised to see Frank stood outside. "Oh, hi."

"Who is it?" Gee called out from down the hall.

"Your boyfriend." Mikey let out a sigh, raising his eyebrows at Frank, as he made his own way inside, closing the door behind him.

"So, it's true, huh?" Frank asked, making his way down the hall, Mikey finding himself almost awkwardly at his heels.

"What?"

"You got kicked out, and now you have to live with Gee." Mikey stared at him blankly, because it had quite literally been a few hours now and he hadn't even told anybody. "Patrick told me- he needed to talk to you so he went to your house, and your mum was rather blunt about it. He's going to turn up soon, I guess - I don't quite know what he wants to talk to you about, but he told me it was important, and anyway, it's Patrick: he's not fucking around."

"Is that the table?" Frank asked as his boyfriend and his least favourite person in the world pulled a table out of the spare room.

"It is." Gee turned to face Frank, smiling a little as he totally didn't check out his ass, with like his brother stood next to them.

"Gee, where the fuck are we putting this?" Bert grabbed Gee's attention away from Frank's ass, and Mikey reckoned that would be the only thing he could ever thank the guy for.

"Garden, I assume, just shove it up in the corner and we can burn it on bonfire night or something." Gee shrugged it off and the two made their way into the dining room in a painful attempt to get the table that Bob Bryar had once shat on outside.

"Are you okay, Mikey?" Frank asked once the two were out of earshot. "I mean, your mum, fuck, how did this even happen- come into the living room, okay?" Frank lead Mikey into the living room like it was his house, and really, Frank spent enough time here for it to be just that.

"I don't know if you even know this, but, I had a thing with Ray." Mikey sat down on the sofa that Frank had chosen: knowing that this was not the one that Bert usually sat when he was jacking off home alone. "And well, it was a secret thing, a lot of fucking more than anything... I just needed someone, I guess, but it fucked up, and it was a horrible break up, and it was horrible, and fuck, I just ended up looking my mum in the eye and just telling her that I was gay- gay makes more sense to her than demisexual anyway, and it's not like it matters, she'd have kicked me out if it was anything other than straight, like I knew what was going to happen, but I couldn't stop myself, I didn't belong there anymore, I guess."

"It's fine, look, it just matters that you're alright, and you've got Gee, you're lucky, you are, okay?" Frank forced a smile onto Mikey, who only responded with a nervous nod.

The doorbell resonated throughout the house for the third time that night. "That's going to be Patrick." Frank announced, getting up, and leaving Mikey sat in the living room of his new home, feeling even more alone than before.

-

The two had made it to the next town over and a stupid fucking park, and Brendon was running like he'd taken a million pills and Dallon was slowly dying, because he hadn't.

This was killing Dallon: slowly but surely, and more so killing his mind than him in particular, but for sure it was destroying every part of him as time continued to pass.

Brendon hadn't noticed, of course, but neither had Dallon. The two were even smiling, and Brendon was clinging tightly to Dallon's hand as he dragged him down a hill, and almost tripping and falling as they did so, but managing to catch each other before that could happen.

"Oh my god, Dallon, there are swings!" Brendon grinned like a giddy fucking two year old and Dallon seriously hadn't seen Brendon this happy in forever, but then again, Dallon hadn't seen himself this happy ever. "Can we go on the swings?"

"You're seventeen, not seven, I think if you can make the choice to run away from home, you can make the choice to go on some swings." Dallon raised his eyebrows as Brendon dragged him into the kids area of the park: the darkened skies and the late hour upon the clock ensuring that they were indeed alone in the park, which was wonderful news, because Brendon hadn't made out with Dallon in at least thirty minutes now and that was just unacceptable.

"But I want you to come on the swings with me." Brendon made his way over to the swings, sitting down and kicking his legs in the air like an overexcited child.

Dallon grinned at his boyfriend, or at least, Brendon was practically his boyfriend by now, and at this point it hardly mattered what label Dallon referred to him as in his head. "You're ridiculous." He commented, before sitting on the swing beside Brendon.

"Ridiculously hot, you mean!" Brendon exclaimed, practically falling over with laughter like his joke was literally the best thing in the whole damn world.

"Something like that." Dallon gave a shrug as Brendon reached out for his hand, grabbing it as he swung high into the air, and forcing Dallon to do the same. "How old are you right now?"

"I feel like a little kid: I'm happy." Brendon confessed, smiling like an idiot, but causing Dallon to stop and think for just a moment.

"And you're not happy normally?" He dared to ask, watching as Brendon's face fall a little, kicking at the ground with his feet as he came to a halt.

"Not really, no." Brendon admitted, curling his fingers tighter around Dallon's palm. "You make me happy though... I can't imagine what things would have been like if you'd died. It makes me feel bad because I think about how Patrick and Mikey must fell all the time, and how I always just got pissed off when Ryan was trying to be there for Patrick- I just... I feel like an asshole. I don't think anyone would be there for me if you died, and I don't think I deserve that."

"Gabe?" Dallon suggested with a raise of his eyebrows.

"He's pissed off at me, and I'm supposed to be pissed off at him, but I'm kind of not, he just... he loves William a lot, and yeah, he's being an asshole about it, but whatever... I guess... I guess I just really thought he was my best friend for a while, and like, I've never really had that one person that feels exactly the same about me, like they're the most important person in the world to me, and I'm the most important person in the world to them. That's William and Gabe for sure, and I'm not going to fuck with that. I reckon that's Ryan and Patrick too... I feel like they're going to start dating one day... I don't know..."

"You're the most important person in the world." The words were flying from Dallon's lips before he could even think, and Brendon was hit so hard by the impact that he nearly fell back off the swing.

"No, you're the most important person in the world." Brendon finally responded, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and a huge grin upon Dallon's.

"Get the fuck off that swing so I can kiss you, Brendon Urie." Dallon wasn't giving him an option here: it was a fucking order, and Brendon didn't seem to care at all, as he got on Dallon's swing fucking with him: sitting on top of his lap and pushing his legs through the opposite side so he could kiss the absolute fuck out of Dallon, who was kind of holding onto the chains for dear fucking life as the swing moved with the shifting of their weight.

"God, I fucking- just, you. You." Brendon sighed out, mumbling his words into Dallon's neck, before attaching his lips to the pale skin: intent upon ensuring that it didn't stay pale for very fucking long.

"Goddammit, Brendon, I'm going to fall off this fucking swing in a minute-" 

"Way to kill the mood, asshole." Brendon sighed, pulling away, but making no move to get off Brendon's lap, because well, it was kind of comfortable there. "I can't believe there was a time in my life when I knew you existed and weren't making out with you."

"Honestly, same." Dallon didn't seem to care all that much about properly annunciating his sentences when Brendon Urie was sat on top of him, but seriously, who the fuck would? "Genuine question here: is your dick to scale with your forehead?"

Brendon nearly fell off the swing with laughter. "You know I really do love you, because you can insult my forehead and I'm not going to give one single shit at all."

"Answer my question." Dallon pouted, brushing Brendon's hair away from his forehead and marvelling its gigantic size. "Because if your dick's as big as that forehead, then you're going to slip my fucking ass in two."

"It's bigger." Brendon smirked, stretching his arms as far widen as he could to explain just how big his dick was, and nearly falling off the swing in the process.

"My asshole's gonna fall the fuck out." Dallon sighed, shaking his firmly. "I love you, but I'm not risking my asshole for you, Brendon Urie."

"Use like a whole damn bottle of lube, it's going to be fine, baby." Brendon grinned, grinding against Dallon a little, and well, they were in a fucking kids park, okay no one was there because it was like two in the morning, but still, it was a fucking kids park.

"You know what? Maybe I don't believe you about the size of your dick... maybe you're going to have to prove it to me?"

"I thought you'd never ask." 

-

Sarah found herself extremely irritated and alone in her concern for Brendon and Dallon's fucking safety, because everyone she'd spoken with had seemed nothing but apathetic in regards to the situation.

Sarah didn't even know Gabe Saporta, but that was how she ended up stood right outside his house, because Gabe Saporta was labelled as the only person in the world, besides Dallon, who actually gave the slightest fuck about Brendon Urie.

She just hoped that she wasn't going to end up walking in on him fucking his boyfriend, as she had been warned of by a rather drunk Spencer Smith: again someone she didn't really make a habit of speaking to. The things she did for Brendon Urie were seriously out of control by now.

But by some gift from motherfucking God, it was Gabe who opened the door, and it was a fully clothed Gabe, and it was a fully clothed Gabe who looked her up and down and thought 'who the absolute fuck is this?', but Sarah didn't give a motherfucking shit.

"Right, so you're Gabe?" She was just making sure, because otherwise things could get incredibly awkward and she was really not in the mood for that kind of bullshit right now.

"Yeah, and who the fuck are you?" He responded within seconds as he continued to stare at her for any hope of recognising a familiar face.

"I'm Sarah Orzechowski, I'm Brendon's ex-girlfriend, and I've been told that you're the only person who gives a fuck about him." Gabe raised his eyebrows at that, but stood aside to let her in. "Do you know where he is?"

Gabe locked the door behind him them and turned around with a puzzled expression. "Uhm... probably... I don't know, his house?"

"Yeah, okay, you haven't heard." Sarah rolled her eyes in response, making her own way into the living room and sitting down, leaving Gabe to follow her, despite this being his own goddamn house. "He's runaway, or something, with Dallon, I don't know, it's some fucked up shit, and apparently I'm the only person that cares about their safety."

"Remind me exactly how you and Brendon broke up?" Gabe was being blunt as fuck here, but it wasn't like Sarah hadn't handled an excess of rude fuckboys in her life before, was it? She'd dated Brendon Urie, after all.

"He was cheating on me- well, he was cheating on Ryan with me, and I didn't know about Ryan or anything, but I don't hate him... he's been through a lot, he's fucked up in the head, to put it bluntly. I'd probably even go as far as to say that he's depressed-"

"Depressed like Dallon's depressed?" Gabe asked with a raise of his eyebrows.

"Is that why he's in the hospital-"

"Oh, you don't know a thing about Dallon Weekes, do you?" Gabe let out a weird kind of out of place laugh.

"I guess not..."

"Dallon's that kid, you know, the stereotypical emo depressed one, he's anorexic or something, for sure, like I've never ever seen him eat, or know anyone who has, and he's just you know, sad and weird, and then he's in the hospital and Brendon rings me up like Dallon just overdosed and-"

"He fuck- he tried to kill- himself... holy fuck..." Sarah's eyes widened, shaking her head firmly.

"Brendon Urie is not depressed like Dallon's depressed. If Brendon's anything, he's bipolar as fuck, or maybe just an arrogant prick... I haven't decided yet, but I like the guy, he's my friend, he wouldn't say the same about me though, but whatever." Gabe gave a shrug and nodded for Sarah to continue.

"So, I tried calling Brendon, but he hasn't picked up- like, we need to find them- Dallon's going to die without his medication-"

"Sarah, look, you're giving too much of a shit here: the hospital will have alerted the police and then they're going to have people looking for them right now, like, what the hell are we even supposed to do? There's nothing we can do."

"Doesn't this concern you at all?"

"Well, yeah, I'm worried about them, but there is literally nothing we can do to help this: they could be anywhere, and look they'll get back safe, I promise-"

"But you can't promise that, can you?" Sarah shook her head firmly, pulling out her cellphone: to call Brendon, fuck, to call anyone who gave a fuck.

"Look, it's most likely: the police will find them- if you want to speak to someone who's so deeply affected as you, go speak to Brendon's parents or something-"

"Brendon hasn't got parents, not really anyway. His dad shot himself, and his mum is off with some asshole most of the time, so fucking think before you say anything, okay?" And with that, Sarah stormed out of Gabe Saporta's house, making her way down the road with tears in her motherfucking eyes, because fuck Gabe Saporta, fuck Brendon Urie, fuck Dallon Weekes, fuck everyone, fuck everything.

She grabbed her cellphone, aiming to put her headphones in and blast some female fronted punk band, because there was nothing in this world quite as good as that, except maybe Taylor Swift, because who didn't like Taylor Swift?

However, she found her phone vibrating in her palm: the screen changing to show an incoming call, and not just any call.

And the contact name displayed on the upper half of the screen ensured that.

Brendon.

Needless to say, she answered within seconds, her hands shaking as she did so.

"Sarah- fuck, I'm sorry, I-, fuck, I-" And crying, Brendon fucking Urie was crying, and Sarah's voice was seizing up in her throat as she stopped still on the pavement, her eyes fixated upon the road and the traffic ahead, as she listened, waited, waited for something, anything.

"Sarah?" Brendon called again, his voice shaking a little as he did so.

Sarah swallowed hard, tasting blood as she did so, and fuck, she didn't even know what was going on in her head right now: she wasn't familiar with these kinds of emotions, and she most certainly didn't care for them.

"Y-Yeah..." She stuttered out: her voice frail - because in that moment, she was small, she was nothing, and she almost didn't feel real.

"I- I don't know what to do- I- he's just fucking passed out- I- his pulse- there's no pulse- I fuck, he's breathing, he's not- I.. don't know- I... I called an ambulance, but, fuck Dallon- I... he's going to die now, isn't he? And it's m-my fault..."

"Brendon, it's, it's not- I... what do you want me to do, Brendon, I-?"

"Nothing." Brendon exhaled loudly. "Just stay on the line, don't hang up on me, please."

-


	38. gerard dyed his hair i am too unstable to think of a chapter name... again

Gee almost felt infuriated by Mikey's insistent need for privacy when talking to Patrick, but Frank had soon distracted him with a grab of his hand and dragging him into the bedroom, and well, Bert, Bert was just left to kind of stand in the kitchen and glare angstily as he complained to himself about the number of teenagers in his house - they scared the living shit out of him or something.

Speaking of shit, Bert decided to go take a shit since he was that bored, and on his way to the toilet he considered actually having a philosophical conversation with Bob Bryar because he'd most definitely been brought down to that level right now.

And as Bert McCracken left the house in favour of actually finding out why the fuck Bob Bryar hadn't answered his phone, Patrick Stump finally felt comfortable speaking.

It wasn’t Mikey, or anyone, honestly, for Patrick it was just the figure in the corner that ensured he kept shaking nervously as he tried and failed to string some form of sentence together.

"Pete." It was one word, but already Mikey was listening intently with everything he had. "This is about Pete, and you're the only person that cares enough about Pete to understand. I guess, I guess I'd usually tell Ryan these kinds of things, but he wouldn't understand like I'm hoping you can."

"It's fine, I'm not going to be an asshole about this: whatever it is, just tell me, okay?" Mikey pulled on a smile and brought his gaze up to meet Patrick's, and perhaps that was just all the encouragement the ginger haired boy needed, or perhaps it wasn't, but what did it really matter?

"Turn around." Patrick instructed, focusing his gaze back upon 'Pete' in the corner of the room, and gesturing to ensure that Mikey was looking in the right spot.

"Yeah?" Mikey asked, looking exactly at Pete, and showing no signs of acknowledgement at all, and just like that, Patrick was about to puke his guts up all over the living room. "What is it?"

"You can't-" Patrick let out a sigh, his whole body shaking a little as he did so. "You can't see him, can you?"

"What?" Mikey turned back to face Patrick, and of course, his expression was laced with confusion and disbelief, much as Patrick had expected, of course, because he knew he was nothing more than screwed up and insane at this point. "See- him- Pete? Pete? I- Patrick-, I-"

"Yeah, I see Pete, I see him there- god, I'm hallucinating him and he won't go away and I... I've gone crazy haven't I, Mikey?" 

Mikey couldn't help but nod, and of course break Patrick's heart as he did so, but honestly, there was just little else that he could do.

"No you haven't." And needless to say, it wasn't Mikey that spoke this time.

"Please tell me you could hear that." Patrick's eyes grew wide: begging and pleading with Mikey at this point, but still, no matter how much Patrick wanted to, and no mattered how hard Mikey tried, he still couldn't bring himself to lie to the boy sat before him.

"No, Patrick, I couldn't hear anything." Mikey let out a sigh, running forward and pulling Patrick into a hug before he could stop himself, and maybe this was what Patrick needed, or maybe it wasn't, it didn't matter, nothing did, especially when Patrick remained so focused upon the figure that wasn't there, because nothing would ever be quite so real as Pete Wentz had been to Patrick Stump.

"Pete, why can't Mikey see you?" Mikey found his face faltering as he pulled away from Patrick and followed his gaze to the nothingness in the corner of the room, and it broke his heart, goddamn, it really did.

"Because he doesn't love me anymore." Pete's response was in no way spiteful, just blunt and strangely unbiased.

Patrick turned to Mikey and almost fucking glared at him, which unnerved the taller of the two, to say the least. "What did he say?"

"He said you don't love him anymore." Patrick muttered and almost accusingly so, almost like he was fucking disappointed in Mikey, or something, as ridiculous as it sounded.

"I-I-..." Mikey was at an utter loss for what to say. "He's dead, Patrick, it's been months, fuck, Patrick, are you seriously still just as in love with him as you were when he was still alive?"

"Yes." Patrick spoke without thinking: he didn't need to, and fuck, Mikey was crying for him, and he was seriously going to go hug Patrick again, but then 'Pete' spoke up once more, and needless to say, Patrick's attention was otherwise occupied.

"He was with Ray... they dated, and they've broke up now, but trust me, it started a while ago." Pete continued, with not a single emotion present upon his face, even if just for a second.

"You... you and Ray?" Patrick exclaimed turning to Mikey, and scaring the fuck out of the guy right then and there, because he wasn't wrong, and how the fuck could he possibly know?

But, surely, this was Patrick, wasn't it? And he just knew things, didn't he? Or perhaps not.

"Fuck- what the fuck?" Mikey followed Patrick's gaze back to the corner, not even sure how to react as he found himself once again faced with absolutely nothing. "Yeah... you're right... I... how could you possibly know?"

"Pete told me." Patrick relayed the information with a sigh. "Just now, he told me-"

"Yeah, but Pete's fucking dead, Patrick, you're hallucinating him, he's not real, and you just knew that somehow- I'm not saying you're lying to me, perhaps you're even convinced of his existence yourself, but please, Patrick, tell me you know that he's not real, please-"

Mikey never quite got to finish his sentence, and Patrick was never quite faced with the struggle of a response as the front door swung open, slamming against the wall and filling the house with the sound of shouting, which was even enough to convince Frank and Gee to put their clothes back on, so even now, you could tell that this was some serious shit.

Mikey made his way into the hallway and found himself faced with Bert McCracken holding a bruised a bloody Bob Bryar against his side, and then beside them- holy fuck, Mikey reckoned he'd go his entire life without ever seeing Alicia Simmons cry, but just like that, he'd been proved so very fucking wrong, and he absolutely hated it.

"What the fuck happened?" Gee's voice called out from down the corridor, obviously having just managed to reclothe himself before stepping out where his brother could see him.

Bob started fucking giggling like an idiot as Bert attempted to lock the door behind them. "Turns out Alicia's dad really does not like me!"

-

Perhaps it was worse like this.

Perhaps it wasn't.

What did it matter? It was all out of Brendon's control now anyway.

He couldn't bring himself to visit the hospital this time around, and now he was certain that he could never quite stomach the funeral or the graveyard, and Brendon Urie didn't cry a lot, but for Dallon Weekes he did.

And still Brendon couldn’t quite figure out what that meant.

Perhaps there was no point to this kind of self-discovery when we were all going to die in the end anyway. Perhaps there was, again what did it matter?

Brendon wondered exactly how much time he might possibly have left; Brendon wondered exactly how he could possibly know, but of course he couldn't, but even with solid hard fact, the seventeen year old was still not satisfied.

He left his house, perhaps just some sort of excuse to get out of his own bedroom, to get out of his own head: to avoid his mother's glares and his sister's disapproving glances. It was harder when they weren't grieving with him, maybe it wasn't, maybe Brendon didn't care - maybe he was satisfied with the conclusion that his own pain and his own heart would always be more important than that of his family, even the people he held close and dear.

Or perhaps Brendon wasn't satisfied with that at all: perhaps he was simply drowning in his own sorrow and apathetic nature here, or perhaps that was to be expected, perhaps this was better, because if Brendon was going to drown, he wanted to drown alone.

Because he'd always know that he'd try to save himself above the people with him.

And the living proof was in Dallon Weekes, well living was perhaps the wrong word now, and perhaps the proof was far more metaphorical in nature but still, it most certainly struck a chord in Brendon's heart, and it took an awful lot to do that, to say the least.

Because with running away, that was exactly what Brendon needed, and that was exactly what killed Dallon, and he knew that Dallon's life was on his hands, and even though he'd gotten off okay, it still clung to his heart: chains dragging the beating vessel down to hell.

Brendon found himself in the forest a few roads away from his house, and his head dizzy moments after: swearing that only a few seconds ago he'd been in his bedroom, but whatever, his head was perhaps in the worst state it had ever been in right now, and perhaps Brendon didn't care anywhere near as much as he should about that.

Should.

Should was always an odd concept, because really what should Brendon do, and just who decided that? Brendon scoffed, laughing it off as he tripped over his feet and found his body colliding straight into another, and surprisingly enough, it was indeed a straight collision this time, and he could tell that by the two boobs his head had fallen between.

Needless to say, the boob owner had pushed Brendon away within seconds, and thankfully, it wasn't like Jamia Nestor or someone who'd take great pleasure in kicking his ass, but perhaps the only girl- hell, the only person who still had sympathy for him.

"Sarah..." He let out a sigh, looking up at her with wide, blood shot eyes: he hadn't slept last night, or the night before; his brain was powered by caffeine as his head was spinning right off his shoulders, but no matter how messed up and unwell he got, Brendon always knew in the back of his mind that he was doing far much better off than Dallon.

Because no matter how messed up he got, Brendon Urie didn't find himself six feet under in a graveyard across town, or at least not yet anyway.

"Brendon, you- Brendon, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Sarah exclaimed, looking her ex-boyfriend up and down with a great kind of concern. "God, you're, did you even sleep last night?" Brendon shook his head, and Sarah's heart sank in misplaced sympathy for the boy with the enormous forehead. "The night before?" Brendon shook his head once more. "It's not good at home for you, is it?" She didn't even wait for him to shake his head before continuing. "Take my hand, Brendon, come on, I'm taking you home."

"I don't deserve you." Brendon muttered: his words slurred and pathetic, and he was well fucking aware of that, but still, he took her hand: clammy palms and shaking fingers locking with her firm, almost comforting grip. "You have nice hands." He murmured aloud, before he could stop himself, and of course, Sarah only laughed in response.

And honestly, she was just far more glad that Brendon as still alive than she should have been.

But then again, what did 'should' ever mean anyway?

Perhaps it meant the judging gaze of Lindsey Ballato when Kitty told her the truth, or perhaps it meant the look on her parents' faces as they came home to find a teenage boy sleeping on their sofa; she hadn't a clue as to how she was going to lie herself out of that one, but fuck, she'd usually take him to Kitty's or something, but Kitty would tell Lindsey, and Lindsey would kill the both of them.

"You have nice hands too." Sarah muttered after a moment, having mostly forgotten that Brendon had even said anything in the first place. "Brendon, can you like talk to me about what happened with you and Dallon?" She asked as they headed through the woods towards her house: it was a long shot, but Sarah was at the point where she was prepared to try anything.

"He died." And Brendon fucking laughed: it was a nervous laugh, it was a Brendon laugh, but it was a laugh that reeked of beer, and she knew he had to be drunk. "We ran away because I'm selfish and I loved him and then he died because he didn’t get medication from the hospital, we had a fuck on a swing as well, and then he fell asleep, but he didn't wake up- he never woke up... fuck... his last fucking memory is that really shitty orgas- oh god, I'm disappointed in myself-"

"Brendon shut the fuck up." Sarah gripped his hand tighter. "You're drunk, you're gonna get some water, you're gonna take a shower, you're gonna sleep this off and then we can figure this out in the morning, okay? Because you're in no fucking state to even exist as a human being right now."

"Harsh." Brendon added with a shrug. "Maybe your hands aren't so nice after all."

"Maybe they're not. Maybe I'm not just a nice girl, Brendon, I'm not your girlfriend again, I just care about you, and I'm very well aware of what a fucking asshole you are, so don't push your fucking luck, okay?" And perhaps Sarah's voice had come on a little stronger than she'd anticipated.

"Okay." Brendon added, his voice barely a whisper.

-

When Brendon Urie woke up he lost sight of where he was.

Not spiritually, although, he reckoned that was pretty applicable too, but more so physically, because although he had drank an awful lot last night, yesterday, whenever whatever time or day it was when he was last awake, he knew for certain that this was not his living room.

He even found himself considering the possibility of his kidnapping for a good moment or two until a slightly disgruntled Sarah Orzechowski made her way into the room, and Brendon gave her a stupid fucking smile that she made no effort to return.

"You're lucky my uncle died, you know? My parents are staying with my aunt for a week or so to help or whatever, and really, if they weren't there, you wouldn't be here." Sarah let out a sigh, looking Brendon up and down and finding a little part inside of her that was just a little more relieved than it should have been at the simple fact of mortality.

"Sorry about your uncle." Brendon mumbled, sitting up and finding a blanket around him a pillow where his head hand been. "I can't exactly remember much... well... anything."

"It's fine, Uncle Rian was always a bit weird, I didn't know him very much but he has these weird bongo drums he'd play at Christmas and like really, really, disconcertingly white teeth." Sarah smiled. "And in relation to your lack of memory, well you drank a lot, maybe took some other things and I found you in the woods and I took you back here to make sure you didn't die or anything - you slept on the sofa and my parents aren't going to be home for like a week, so you can stay for a while if you want."

"Why did you decide that you needed to play Mother Theresa?" Brendon laughed it off, but Sarah only turned away, biting her lip as she found herself drawn to the memory of when Ryan- Ryan Ross, not 'Uncle Rian' had used the exact same phrase after the show she'd played.

"When I decided that I was a good person." She answered after a moment or two of silence. "And when I saw just how messed up you looked- you were so- Jesus, it was concerning."

"I was so Jesus?" Brendon exclaimed, his eyebrows raising to climb the vast expense of his great forehead like it was a mineral they were craving. "You've got me mixed up with Gabe, there-... he dressed up as Jesus for like Bill's cousin's wedding or something: it's a really long story."

"Okay." Sarah chose not to say much more about that, which was probably for both of their benefit. "Do you want me to make you breakfast or something, and we can like talk about this, because you are most certainly not okay, Brendon Urie, I promise."

"I'm alright, it's fine you don't need to-" Brendon shrugged it off, stretching a little and getting up off the sofa.

"I am going to, because you really aren't taking care of yourself like this, you know?" Sarah shook her head before making her way over to the kitchen and putting some toast in or something.

"I'm fine." Brendon added, his voice muffled as he stumbled into the kitchen after her, taking a seat at the breakfast and totally not looking at her ass she leaned down to get some plates.

"If you were fine you wouldn't have been drunk and depressed and an absolute mess. I know you, Brendon, whether you like that or not, and you know me well enough to know that there's not a chance that I'm just going to let it go- and don't you fucking dare start singing Frozen on me."

"I think you'll find that the song's called 'Let It Go', and that the movie is 'Frozen'. If I sang you the entire script of Frozen I think it'd take a while and the toast would probably burn." It seemed that Sarah was learning that early mornings just amplified Brendon's sarcastic and irritating tendencies by a million percent, and it seemed like she really was learning that the hard way.

"Shut up and eat your toast." She rolled her eyes, buttering him a slice of toast and pushing it across the breakfast bar to him, before turning to her own.

"This is nice toast." Brendon commented, totally necessarily, of course.

"Thanks-" Sarah didn't quite get to finish her half hearted response to his half hearted compliment, before the doorbell cut her off, and for a moment there she was convinced it was her parents and that they were both dead, but then it occurred to her that her parents would probably have keys to their own house.

Of course, the identity of the person behind their front door was infinitely worse.

But, of course, Sarah wasn't to know that until Ryan Ross practically tackled her into some sort of weird weepy hug.

And through the open doorway to the kitchen, Brendon Urie's stomach tied itself into at least two thousand and five knots as all his vital organs exploded and he died right on the spot.

Because honestly, Brendon and Ryan hadn’t spoken for months, and it was perhaps the realisation of that which hurt Brendon more than Ryan's presence ever would.

"Patrick..." Ryan muttered, his head buried into Sarah's shoulders, still utterly unaware of Brendon's presence, and to add to that, the fact that he was in earshot. "I haven't seen him in days- I don't... I tried calling, and I tried Joe and Andy, and- I-... I don't know what the fuck to do, I haven't seen him at all or even heard from him, I-"

Ryan looked up.

Ryan looked past Sarah's shoulder.

Ryan looked into the kitchen.

Ryan looked at Brendon.

And Brendon looked at Ryan.

"If you've fucking got back with him, I think I'm going to slap the both of you." Ryan was the first to speak: his words directed at Sarah as he doubted he had it in him to be the first to break his and Brendon's silence of many months now.

"My boyfriend died like two fucking days ago!" However Brendon made it evident that his views on their weird silent pact thing were worlds away from Ryan's.

"Your boyfriend-"

"Dallon." Sarah answered for him, mainly just to stop Brendon killing Ryan here. She reluctantly stepped away from Ryan: reluctance laying in the matter of the inevitable fight of sorts that would occur without her stood between the two.

"He's fucking dead." And just like that, Brendon Urie was crying, and a million emotions hit Ryan Ross like some sort of homosexual tidal wave, and before he knew what he was doing, he was rushing to Brendon.

But he wasn't hitting him, as Sarah had predicted.

In fact, there was a whole world of difference, because right now, at eight in the morning in Sarah Orzechowski's kitchen, Ryan Ross was hugging Brendon Urie, and just like that, the world seemed to be at peace with itself once more.

-

Bert continued to remain utterly disgruntled at just how many goddamn people were in his house right now, and just how many of them seemed as if they had never heard of closing the goddamn door. Like seriously, Bert's life now consisted of closing doors behind people he didn't particularly like.

There was Gee, of course, who did actually live there, and then Frank who seemed to come as some sort of weird plus one, who didn't technically live there, but Bert was pretty sure Gee had given him his own key last week, and then Mikey, who surprisingly enough, Bert didn't actually mind all that much, was now occupying the guest bedroom on a unnervingly undefined kind of permanent basis. And with Alicia's dad going all psycho on her and Bob after she'd just straight walked out of her home, the two had resorted to sleeping on the sofa.

Bert was just kind of glad that that Patrick kid had the manners to go home at least.

He'd now taken to getting up before ten in the morning just to use his own goddamn bathroom, and that shit was ridiculous, quite literally, but whatever, it gave him first dibs in the alcohol cupboard that he was unsuccessfully trying to keep hidden from Bob, but Bob was pretty stupid so if he just told him that they kept the beer on the table on the garden that he shat on once, he would probably believe him.

"You're up early." Bert jumped as someone else walked into the kitchen and grabbed a can of coke from the fridge as Bert grabbed the secret bottle of whiskey from the back of the cupboard.

"I wouldn't be if I didn't have to be in order to drink my own damn alcohol." He groaned, glancing across at the guy taking a seat at the breakfast bar, which turned out to be Mikey, and well, Bert was actually pleasantly surprised, because besides forcing him to move that shitty table outside, the guy hadn't really given Bert much of a reason to hate him yet.

"Maybe you just need to hide it better." Mikey suggested, pulling his cellphone out his pocket and checking twitter or something for no reason: an awkward gesture he'd gotten accustomed to ever since he was technically living in the same house as his ex-girlfriend and her not quite boyfriend.

"I would, but then there'd be no hope of me finding it when I'm drunk." Bert rolled his eyes, taking a seat two away from Mikey, closest to the wall, and leaning back against it as he opened the bottle of whiskey.

"It's like nine in the morning." Mikey's eyes widened a little as he watched Bert down at least a third of the bottle in one go.

"I'm very well aware, believe it or not." Bert chuckled, putting the bottle down on the breakfast bar and making an awkward kind of eye contact with Mikey. "Alicia's your ex, isn't she?"

Mikey blushed a little before nodding; it was an awkward question, but one he was prepared to answer. "From ages ago though, I've had two others since."

"Alright, kid, don't need to boast about your lovelife to an old lonely man like me." Bert let out an over exaggerated laugh, succeeding in making Mikey a little uncomfortable. "Tell me about your exes and I'll tell you about mine, huh?"

Mikey shrugged it off, because okay, why not - it wasn't like he had a boyfriend, or even parents to waste his time with anymore. Fuck, that was an odd thought, and Mikey was silent for a minute in aftermath of it. "There was Alicia, and it was like a month or so long, and it was alright but I ended up cheating on her and that messed up... and then there was Pete... he's uhh... dead now, so I kind of... don't want to talk about him that much, but then there's Ray and we broke up a few days ago and it was kind of a weird thing really... I kind of loved him but I didn't, and it was secret and it ended in a big fight and he used to be my best friend but now I'm not so sure anymore. It's a mess, really."

"Your life seems far more fascinating than mine, kid." Bert took another swig of whiskey, before continuing. "I dated your brother for a bit ages ago, but I assume you don't really want me to go into detail about that, and then I dated Frank's mum for like two weeks, and that was just weird, I don't know, and then there was this girl with a shaved head and she was cool but she was really into water sports and it's like no thanks pal-"

"Water sports?" Mikey's eyes widened with confusion, unsure as to just how Bert could possibly hate someone based on their love for sailing and jet skiing and the like, but of course, he was horribly innocent and horribly naive right now.

"If you don't know, you don't want to-" Bert was cut off as the door opened, and a very, very, very tired Gee Way stumbled into the kitchen.

"Get me a drink." He mumbled in Bert's direction, only to be thrown a middle finger, which he took great pleasuring in returning, before heading to grab his own can of beer from the cupboard. "If you're chatting up my brother I'll slap you."

"Mmm... will you now? I like it when you slap me-"

"Fuck off." Gee rolled his eyes and opened the can of beer. "Mikey, for real, slap him for me if he starts being an asshole."

"Don't be so rude, Gee, we were just having a lovely conversation about water sports."

And just like that, Gee choked on his beer. "Water sports? I assume you aren't talking about motherfucking sailing."

"Mikey doesn't know what it is." Bert smirked, glancing between the two of them. "Tell your baby brother all about water sports, will you?"

"He's eighteen in two months, he's hardly my baby brother." Gee rolled his eyes, but turned to Mikey, wondering just how much more messed up this could possibly get. "Water sports... is well, it's basically like, you're into like piss... on people when you're fucking, and like... in their mouth or something... it's messed up."

"Ohh..." Mikey's eyes widened, and he turned back to Bert, thinking about the girl with the shaved head once more. "It was probably a good idea that you broke up with her then."

"Who's this?" Gee asked, raising his eyebrows a little.

"Thingy with the tits and no hair." Bert had certainly put it nicer when talking to Mikey, and the younger way brother couldn't help but take note of that.

"Oh the one with the hooker's name, like fucking Liberty... or? I don't know, she wasn't my ex-girlfriend."

"Who wasn't your ex-girlfriend?" Frank asked, making his way into the kitchen.

"Your mum." Gee rolled his eyes, because it was far too fucking early for this shit.

"Yeah, she was mine, remember, hey?" Bert added with a smirk worth punching off his face.

-

Patrick had been awaiting the turning of keys in the lock of the front door for several hours now.

He'd been shivering in the cold of an unheated house for a long time now, but he couldn't leave the bottom step; he couldn't distract himself, he couldn’t let this slip away, because like that, it could only get worse, and with his gaze fixated upon the white of his front door, he found it just a little easier to ignore the figure stood in the corner of his vision.

And just like that, Patrick had managed to lie enough to convince himself that this would really all be okay.

"Patrick?" His mother was just a little surprised to see her son sat on the bottom step of the stairs, eyes vacant, yet troubled, when she came home. "Are you okay?" She furrowed her brow, locking the door behind her and taking a seat beside her son on the bottom step. "Honey?"

"I'm not." Patrick shook his head, forcing the words out before he could stop himself again, because Patrick's life was an never-ending hurdles event, and he had tripped up on everyone up until this point, maybe this time he'd make it - he'd make one, but he could never keep it up forever, so what did a winning streak even mean?

"Okay, I mean." Patrick added a few moments later. "I'm not okay." And it hurt his heart just to admit, but perhaps that was a good thing, because as the words began to flow from his lips, the figure in the corner of his eyes started to appear just a little less real.

"Why not, sweetie?" His mum asked, putting her arm around her son's shoulders.

"I'm sad, I guess... I mean... it's hard, like talking about it, but I talked to a friend- well not really a friend, but an acquaintance who might possibility understand and he didn't, and he didn't understand because I'm not okay, this isn't an issue people can sympathise with because it's not one I'm supposed to have."

"What's this issue?" Mrs Stump dared to ask after a moment or two of excessively prolonged silence.

"Pete." Patrick exhaled, his lungs consuming all the oxygen in the world as he did so, or at least it felt like that anyway. "He's... I keep seeing him again, l-like a ghost or something, but ghosts aren't really, are they? I'm going crazy or something, mum... do you still love me, even though I'm messed up in the head kind of crazy?"

"Of course I love you, Patrick, I'm your mother, I'll always love you." She pulled her son into a tight, yet awkward hug, but it kind of meant the world in an odd sense.

"But that's exactly it." Patrick dared to continue as he finally pulled away. "You love me because you're my mother: you love me because you're supposed to, you love me because you should, you love me because you have to. That's how it's always been, and that's how it's always going to be, because I'm not important, I'm not significant, and I'm not even sane anymore."

"You're amazing, Patrick, you're the best son I could ever ask for, and I promise you that." She let out a sigh, every self-destructive word uttered from her sons lips digging into her side like daggers. "Can you see him right now?"

"Yeah." Patrick nodded slowly, turning his head to the corner of vision, meeting his gaze with the one of the figure in the corner. "He's there." And Patrick pointed this time.

"I can't see anything there, I'm sorry, honey." And it was genuine sadness, and Patrick knew it, and there never be anything he'd be quite so thankful for.

"I know you can't." He turned back to face his mother, breathing in half time. "Mikey couldn't either."

"Do you think you need to talk to someone about this?" Mrs Stump suggested, pulling her son closer into her side. "Like a therapist or someone."

"I don't know, I mean, I guess... maybe... I just don't wanted to be locked up for being insane, because I am, and that's all I'm going to be: I'm stuck and messed up and I'm going to live that way, and I'm going to die that way too."

"Patrick, that's not true, you're... you're being paranoid... I'm sorry... I really don't know how to deal with this: I wasn't expecting it, to say the least."

"Neither was I." Patrick added with an exasperated sigh.

"I'll call the doctors now and make an appointment, and you can talk to them about this, and we can get it fixed, because this is just normal, right? This is a normal reaction to someone's death, isn't it- yes, yes it is. Look me in the eyes, Patrick, and believe me when I say it is, it's normal, and you're okay."

"I'm okay." Patrick repeated aloud as his mother got up and made her way to the kitchen in order to make the phone call to the doctors that could either save or ruin his life.

And at this point, Patrick didn't exactly know which he preferred, because it's not like anything would ever get any easier was it?

It wasn't like Pete could simply stop being dead, was it?

Because after all, that was what Patrick needed to be okay again, because Pete's death had fucking killed him completely, and there was very little anyone could say to deny that.

Because ahead, all there would ever be would be hurdles for him to trip: jumps he couldn't make, because realistically, Patrick was a pretty short good, and this wasn't going to work out, this path, this lane, this life, this town, these people, these friends.

It was like Pete had left the hurdles behind him when he died, and Patrick was forever chasing after him, but if Patrick knew anything, he knew that he couldn't do that forever.

So perhaps, he simply needed to step aside, into the lane next to him, because that looked like an easier route, and although he'd become accustomed to this one, it just wasn't good for him anymore.

Because in this town, everything was nothing more than a painful reminder of Pete and who he could have been.

Patrick thought of the real Pete, not the one his mind had conjured up for him, and wondered what he'd think about all of this mess, because regardless of his mortality, Pete Wentz would always be Patrick Stump's best friend.

And Pete Wentz would always be the last good thing about this part of town.

Patrick got to his feet, watching as his mum put the phone down, and addressing her simply and calmly, which wasn't something she'd really expected.

"It's this town, it's these people, because he never really left: there are parts of Pete left behind everywhere here, and I don't think I'll ever be able to move on like this... like to move on, I've really got to move on."

"You want to move out?"

"I've got to try, haven't I?"

His mother stood there for a moment, deep in thought, before turning back to her son. "Of course."

-


	39. i tried to write smut but i ended up referencing the frog meme instead

"He's gone, I mean, really gone."

Joe Trohman stood in disbelief as Ryan Ross turned up at his house at seven in the morning, which wasn't a regular occurrence, to say the least.

"What?" Joe asked, his eyes widening a little as he took in Ryan's disheveled appearance, and began to consider whether the guy stood outside his door was just drunk, and just need to be let in and allowed to sleep on his sofa for the rest of the day, or whatever.

But that really was not the case, and really, everyone in the whole damn world would have preferred it to be so.

"P-Patrick." Ryan stuttered out, looking as if he was about to burst into tears at any given moment, and well, at this point Joe had little choice but to let him in.

"What do you mean?" He spoke in the calmest tone he could muster, locking the front door behind the two of them, as Ryan stood in his hallway: jittery and on the brink of tears, and fuck, Joe had really never been quite so confused.

"He's gone, Joe!" Ryan exclaimed, his voice cracking as he broke into an awkward screech worthy of a twelve year old boy.

"Patrick? Where?" Joe still wasn't getting this, and it most definitely had something to do with the fact that it was no later than seven sixteen in the morning.

"I don't know! No text, no phone call, no nothing, his house is empty- they just fucking left, they're just gone and I've tried calling him at least seven times now and I just-..." Ryan paused for breath, shaking his head firmly as he did all he could to refrain from having some sort of mental breakdown right then and there. "No response, no fucking response, I'm just... I'm clueless. He never said anything at all."

"He said nothing to me either." Joe added after a moment, leading Ryan into the living room and gesturing for him to take a seat on the sofa beside him. "God, I... he's really gone... just moved his whole family- I... this just won't sink in-"

"Well I can fucking show you-"

"I believe you, Ryan, of course I believe you, I just care too much about him to let it be true, god, I... I just really hope he's alright." Joe let out a sigh, pulling his knees up to his chest. "He always seemed to have a hard time with life, didn't he? Especially with Pete and everything."

"God, I couldn't possibly blame him; Patrick is the nicest person I've ever met, but he was always so quiet, just in the background... he didn't particularly, you know, make himself known... if you get what I mean?" Joe nodded in response, leaving Ryan to continue. "And then Brendon was always such a dick to him, but Brendon's always such a dick to anyone... I mean... he used to be at least, I think... I feel like he's changed an awful lot after Dallon died."

"Anyone would, your kind of best friend kind of boyfriend dies, you've lost your whole world, haven't you?" Joe paused for a moment, sat there in silence and thought for a moment, before glancing at Ryan and continuing. "I assume it was the same with Patrick, wasn't it? Of course, I didn't know him until after, but..."

"I knew him, but like not really... like he was there, I knew of him, but we'd never really had much of a conversation until Pete died, and well... that affected us all. I remember the funeral; he was the first one there and I arrived with Brendon, and I spoke to him, making sure he was okay, but Brendon didn't seem to care for it at all... he almost seemed... jealous."

"I don't really know Brendon that well, but I get a sort of weird vibe from him, like there's just something off, you know?" Joe posed the question with anxiety and found an instant kind of relief in Ryan's hasty nod.

"I guess he never had someone there grieving with him and making sure he was okay, protecting and him stuff, like I did with Patrick." Joe hit Ryan with a confused expression. "Brendon- he doesn't want people to know, like I think only I know this, but his dad died a few years ago. He shot himself, and Brendon hasn't exactly had things easy from then on. He sort of built up this whole egotistical facade to deal with it, because there are moments with Brendon when you see past that, and you see this guy: sweet, and fucking scared, oh so fucking scared."

"I assume it doesn't get any easier the second time either..." Joe met Ryan's gaze, shuffling a little closer to him. "With Dallon... Brendon's going to need someone there for him or it's going to be like his dad all over again, and that facade will strengthen, and honestly, I don't even care for Brendon that much, but no one deserves to hurt like that for so long."

"I think Sarah's got that covered; I went over to hers the other day and I just- that was the first time I'd seen Brendon in far too long, and fuck, I thought we were going to fight and I thought- but no, we just hugged, we didn't even say anything, I just sat with him until he fell asleep and then left afterwards... I don't know... it was weird."

"He needs you, Ryan, I'm not going to lie to you here, I just know-"

"So you're telling me to get back with Brendon Urie?" Ryan exclaimed, Joe's suggestion taking him by surprise, well to say the least.

"No- well, I... I'm not telling you to do anything, Ryan, I'm just telling you that Brendon is going to fuck himself up with this, and I'm just telling you that you're probably the only person who can stop that."

"I..." Ryan stared at Joe: utterly perplexed, and dear god, it was far too early for this shit.

"You could just help him as a friend, but I know you, Ryan, you care, and you need someone to care about, and Brendon needs someone to care about him." Joe paused for a moment, before getting to his feet. "Coffee?"

"What?"

"Do you want some coffee?" Joe asked, changing the subject within seconds, and okay, Ryan didn't exactly blame him all that much: it was some pretty heavy duty conversation considering the time. "I can't imagine I'm going to be able to get back to sleep now."

"Yeah, please, lots of milk."

-

Ryan knew that Sarah was judging him as he turned up at her house at eight in the morning, and she judged him even more when he walked past after a quick hello and sat down on the sofa beside Brendon, who was, of course still fast asleep, because it was the eight in the fucking morning, okay?

"Should I even ask?" Sarah let out a sigh, locking the front door behind Ryan, before making her way into the living room and taking a seat in the chair beside the sofa. "What happened to me being 'mother Theresa'?"

Ryan shrugged, looking down, and well, he honestly wasn't all that sure. "I... Patrick... he's gone... I... moved or something... just nothing, his whole house no nothing... I just... it's weird, and I... I just... I had this conversation with Joe and my whole head's a mess, but I feel sorry for him, and I want to be here when he wakes up, because I want to make sure he's okay."

"Is this a gay thing again?" Sarah asked, her eyebrows raised, because well, she really hadn't been expecting this.

"I don't know yet, I mean, I'm not planning on it being like that, but he's Brendon and I'm Ryan, and I feel like that means something." Ryan grabbed Brendon's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, and causing him to stir in his sleep a little. "His dad did something a while ago, and it affected him, and I can't... he doesn't tell people this, I-"

"His dad shot himself? Yeah, he told me that." And Ryan only stared blankly because he really had not been expecting that.

"Oh... I thought he only ever told me." Ryan let out a sigh, and he wasn't sure if he was disappointed or what, because whatever he was, it felt fucking stupid.

"It was when you told me to talk to him after Patrick's party and that mess, and well... yeah... we've kind of gone full circle now?" Sarah smiled, because she didn't care... about... something... it's not exactly specified what, okay? Sarah just didn't care. Perhaps it was about the milk fic, Sarah didn't care about the milk fic, although, it wasn't entirely that relevant right now, but whatever, it's beyond the point now: Sarah just fucking smiled, okay?

"Yeah, I guess." Ryan forced a smile in return, only for Brendon to jump up, waking up all of a sudden in a mildly amusing gesture.

"W-what?" He mumbled, rubbing his eyes and glaring in Sarah's direction. "Are you watching me sleep? I know I'm a whiny, troubled teenager, but I'm not exactly Bella Swan, and you're hardly Edward Cullen."

"No, I'm talking to Ryan." Sarah spoke with the kind of nonchalance that sent a bullet through Brendon's chest as he turned his head and noticed his motherfucking ex-boyfriend sat so casually beside him.

"W-what?"

"He wanted to talk to you when you woke up or something." Sarah got to her feet, winking at Ryan in a totally discreet manner, but Brendon was half-asleep so it barely mattered at all. "Look, I’m going to go make breakfast, okay?" And with that, the living room door was closed behind them, and Brendon was not at all prepared for this kind of stressful homosexuality so early in the morning.

"Brendon, I... I'm sorry, okay? You're not okay, are you?" Ryan wasn't entirely sure where to start with this mess, but he assumed an apology was as good a place as any.

"I'm fine..." Brendon mumbled, leaning into Ryan's side, making it evident that he really wasn't awake yet. "Are you okay?"

"I guess... no, you know what actually? I'm not." Ryan snapped, taking hold of his life and his emotions in a move that shouldn't have been as empowering as it was, but whatever.

"Oh..." Brendon trailed off, his expression changing to one of confusion as he struggled to get his brain to function this early in the morning. "Why?"

"Patrick... oh... I don't even know anymore: he's moved away, and I don't even know why, I've haven't spoken to him or see him in days, and there's no call or text or explanation or anything, like... is it something I've done? I don't fucking know and Joe's as clueless as I am."

"It's about Pete... it's still about Pete, it's always about Pete: things like that just don't go away." Brendon let out a sigh, beginning to wake up, and beginning to remember just how much Dallon had mattered as he did.

"I know."

"No, you don't, because... Dallon's my Pete, in a way, and I can see Patrick, and I'm going to end up like Patrick, and I don't know if I want that I- I don't, no I don't. My head's full of him: it's the eating disorder that he never could recover from, and it's my fault, my selfishness, and that play park and those swings, and that... we were at a play park and we sat on the swings and I was so in love, and everything was okay, and I was so fucking okay, and everything felt like flying, but with the high, there's always a low, and we kissed and fucked, and then we just cuddled, and he fell asleep on my side or something, but, he never fucking woke up, Ryan, he never did, and I can't- I can't... I just... what if we'd never even got acquainted, like that one night that Gabe was with Bill, and I-... I still haven't really spoken to Gabe, and maybe I should, but I don't know, my head's such a mess-"

And then Brendon was crying, and his face was pressed into Ryan's chest, and everything was so homosexual, but a subtle kind of homosexual, because like Brendon was crying, and Ryan had decency, and fuck, Brendon was crying, and over Dallon too, and Brendon just didn't cry, and Ryan couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Brendon's dead ex-boyfriend.

"I'm sorry about us, and everything... I know it was you, and- fuck, look it doesn't matter anymore, okay? Let's just start again, we're friends again, because I kind of miss you a lot and you're not going to admit it but you need a best friend right now."

"Yeah." Brendon leaned his head into Ryan's lap. "This me admitting it and proving you wrong, because I can."

"Stubborn asshole." Ryan rolled his eyes, his heart jolting in his chest as he was suddenly thrown back to that first music lesson where he was sat next to Brendon, and fuck, just fuck. "Remember that first music lesson when we met?"

Brendon nodded, letting out a sigh, and meeting Ryan's gaze. "You know what the first thing I ever heard about you was?"

Ryan shook his head.

"Pete said to me that day before the music lesson 'his name is Ryan Ross and one day I will be attending your wedding'." 

Ryan let out a sigh, his eyes hitting the floor. "Things don't always work out how we want them to, I guess."

"No," Brendon shook his head, "they really don't."

-

"I'm tired..."

"You just slept for twelve hours, Bob."

"I know." He smiled, burying his head into Alicia's side. "I'm still tired."

"I know." She laughed it off, sitting up on the sofa that they'd been crashing on together for the past few days: shit had gotten nasty with her parents and Bob, and dear god, she reckoned she was permanently disowned at this point, but she still couldn't really get herself to give that much of a fuck at all, which was pretty odd.

"I'm not waking up." Bob groaned, opening his eyes with an excess of effort, and leaving Alicia to roll her eyes at her best friend. "I'm not!" He repeated, almost as if to reinforce his point, and almost as if Alicia didn't believe him, and of course, she didn't; she knew better, after all.

"Okay, whatever you say." She grinned, getting up, and taking the blanket with her, and much as she had suspected, Bob really did not like that at all.

"Fucking fuck you- no, why would you do that?" Bob exclaimed, appearing genuinely offended by the fact that Alicia had left, and taken the goddamn blanket with her, and now Bob was both cold and tired, which fucking sucked.

"Because I'm the motherfucking wicked witch of the west." Alicia exclaimed, throwing a middle finger in Bob's direction, and smirked to herself as she watched him sit up.

"Yeah, and I'm fucking Gandalf, so watch the fuck out." He mumbled, getting up with severe reluctance, because he really wasn't happy about this at all.

"Wrong movie, pal, Gandalf was Lord of the Rings and the wicked witch of the west is The Wizard Of Oz." 

"Whatever, do I look like I care? No, fuck you." But Bob followed her into the kitchen nonetheless, because he was Bob Bryar and she was Alicia Simmons and that was kind of how things just were.

"Morning." Frank greeted the two of them with a nod of his head. "Gee's with Mikey, and it's 'private' or something, so I'm left all alone." He pouted as he continued.

"You've got us." Bob exclaimed, grinning like an idiot, and embracing Frank in a suffocating, but amusing, at least from Alicia's point of view, hug. "Also do you have any weed, because all my weed was at my house and I-"

"There's probably some in Gee's room, if you can find it, but no I did not tell you about this, okay? And if you get caught, it's your fault, got it?" And Bob was nodding his head and making his way towards Gee's room before Frank could even breathe.

"He's an idiot." Alicia smiled to herself as the door closed behind him. "I do love him, though, but he's a fucking idiot."

"Love him? Or just-"

"He's nine years older than me, he's a drug dealer, and a shit one at that, he's my best friend, but definitely not my boyfriend." Alicia let out a sigh as she took the seat beside Frank at the kitchen table.

"Okay, he doesn't have to be - I was just wondering." Frank turned to Alicia with a sigh, because fuck, he'd seen her and Bob as they'd arrived, and there were dozens of questions on the tip of his tongue but couldn't quite bring himself to say, and it was slowly cutting him down.

"Just say it." Alicia's voice cut through his thoughts like a very rude knife. "I can tell you want to say something: just do it, I've heard it all."

"What exactly happened with you and Bob and your parents and all that mess?" 

She exhaled loudly, her fingers twitching a little as she looked away. "I left to go stay with Bob after we had an argument, and well, my parents eventually decided to forgive me or whatever, and they kept texting and calling but I wouldn't reply, and they got pissed off and worried, and ended up tracking my phone or whatever, and found Bob's place, and then there was the whole 'who the fuck is this random man and why are you living with him?' thing and then my dad really fucking lost it and called me an ungrateful bitch, and then Bob, Bob just fucking punched him square in the face, fucking knocked him off his feet, and Bob was just stoned as fuck at the time, like I doubt he even remembers it, but I doubt I'll ever forget it and the look on my mother's face, and then my father punching him back, and then Bob punching him again harder, and then my mother finally came to her senses and got her and dad the fuck out of there. And Bob's fucking face was bleeding, like god, it looked worse than it really was, and I dragged him outside so I could see it in the light, and get him to the hospital or whatever if necessary, and then Bert shows up, and everyone's arguing, and I think my brain just gives the fuck up then, because I'm still walking but the next thing I know is Mikey's voice, and this place... and fuck... just fuck."

"God, I'm so sorry, fucking hell, I-" Frank began, only for Alicia to cut him off with the need for another explanation.

"I don't know if we can even go back to Bob's without fear of this happening again, because, well, my parents aren't the best of people, to say the least, but I can't stay here on a fucking sofa forever, and I can't go back and they want me to go back - that's the purpose here, but Bob's my best friend, and he's not someone I can give up on, like, no matter what a fucking idiot he is, he's always my idiot, and he always matters the most?"

"That's how I feel about Gee." Frank admitted, avoiding her gaze for a moment. "Like, technically I should have dumped for cheating on me with Dallon, but he was a mess, and it is his fault, yes, but I can't bring myself to blame him, I just love him a goddamn awful lot."

"Bob's not my boyfriend though: it's a different kind of love-"

"No, love's the same, it's just how you express it that's different, and it's fine whatever way you do express it, because you don't have to date him, I'm not saying that at all, I'm just... I think I’m slowly beginning to realise just how much Gee matters to me."

"And you didn't already know?"

"No, you don't, not really, because you just sort of get used to these feelings, and they way they grow a little each day, and it's casual, and then one day you're hit in the face by this tidal wave of feelings that you can't understand or control, not really, anyway, I mean sure you can try, but-"

Alicia caught her breath, her gaze drifting to the floor. "I think, I think I know what you mean."

-

Jamia had slept at Lindsey's that night, and the past four nights, but that was besides the point, or whatever, Jamia was just a little preoccupied with kissing her girlfriend right then: it was tipsy kind of eleven in the morning 'we've already downed a bottle of wine' kissing, but it was kissing nonetheless.

But it wasn't like you could blame her, was it?

Lindsey Ballato was just a fucking goddess, and that was the eleventh commandment of God himself, yes, yes you heard it here first.

"I have like six unread messages." Jamia mumbled into Lindsey's side: a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"But you have me here." Lindsey continued, pressing her lips against Jamia's in one quick motion. "You can read them any time, but my offer might not be that permanent."

"And what offer is that?" Jamia broke into a grin, pulling away from Lindsey so she could see her face properly.

The older of the two only smirked in response. "Perhaps you'll have to find out."

"Or perhaps you could stop being such a cryptic little bitch." Jamia suggested with a raise of one eyebrow, causing Lindsey to throw her middle finger in her direction.

"You totally killed the mood." Lindsey groaned, leaning back against the bed, her gaze fixating upon the picture of that frog meme that Gee had blu-tacked to her ceiling a while ago when he was very, very high, and well, Lindsey had resorted to just ignoring it at this point.

"I'm sorry, I'm not the one with a frog meme on my ceiling staring at us as we fuck." Jamia pointed out as she joined Lindsey laid back on the bed.

"You've got to admit that it's kind of amusing though." Lindsey added, raising her eyebrows a little as she watched Jamia peer it at with an intense curiosity.

"Okay, just a little." Jamia rolled her eyes, entwining her fingers with Lindsey's, but like no homo, because they're just 'live in gal pals' what, lesbians don't exist? "I'm not exactly a memelord, though."

"I'm the meme queen." Lindsey grinned, before shaking her head firmly. "That's totally Gerard, though- did I tell you he was the one who put it there?"

"Yes, only about four hundred and twenty times." Jamia rolled her eyes, leaving Lindsey to press a kiss to her lips just to shut her up, and not because lesbians- remember, gal pals!

"Who's the meme queen now?" Lindsey sat up, and perhaps just so she could avoid looking at that goddamn frog meme before she had a heart attack or something.

"Stop saying meme queen or I'll do something, I swear-"

"Do what?" Lindsey pulled Jamia up with her, leaning in closer in a heterosexual way because lesbians don't exist remember, kids! "Do me?"

"I'd like to." Jamia added, and well, it wasn't exactly like the whole goddamn world knew it already, was it? "That frog meme is kind of off putting, though, like the face it's making- it's kind of seductive-"

"Did you really just call a frog seductive?" Lindsey widened her eyes in disbelief.

"Yes, Lindsey Ballato, yes I motherfucking did!" 

"Alright then, whatever, you can get it off if you want, or you can get me off if you want, whatever you want, my meme queen." Lindsey mock bowed at Jamia, who was quick to flash her middle finger in response.

"Your meme queen, fuck off, I'm not your meme queen!" Jamia looked genuinely repulsed as she stumbled out of bed, grabbing a plaid shirt from the floor and pulling it on, because damn, she was just that heterosexual.

"Where are you going? Don't leave me with my frog meme." Lindsey pouted, giggling to herself like a fucking idiot, because that was indeed what she was.

"I can't take you and your memes anymore, Jesus Christ, I'm getting breakfast-"

"We don't have any milk!" Lindsey exclaimed, stumbling out of bed after her in significantly less clothing, not that Jamia particularly minded, of course.

"Goddam it! What on earth will we do without milk? Next thing you'll be telling me that we don't have a bathtub either!" Jamia exclaimed, her expressions over exaggerated, but not in an unnecessary way, because milk was an important, vital part of a healthy calcium enriched lifestyle.

"No, we only have a shower." Lindsey muttered in genuine milk deprived disappointment.

"Look, do you know where Ryan Ross lives, because goddamn, we need some milk!" Jamia's words were stressed and rightly so, because with this calcium deficiency, stress was inevitable.

"Let's just go to Gee's. I swear there's like seven people staying there right now." Lindsey suggested, leaving Jamia to raise her eyebrows at her girlfriend.

"You might want to put a few more clothes on, though." Jamia pointed out, although she wasn't all that particularly fussed herself. "Just a suggestion, of course, do what you want."

"Can I do you then?" Lindsey grinned, pinning Jamia back against the wall. "Because that way, we don't have to worry about eating out, because I'll just eat you out, if you know what I mean."

"No, Lindsey, as a sexually active lesbian I don't know what eating out means-" Jamia began, only for Lindsey to push her lips against the eighteen year old's, and well, that shut her up pretty quickly, not that either of the two 'live in gal pals' really minded.

Lindsey pulled the plaid shirt off her girlfriend, leaving the two of them stood in Lindsey's kitchen, absolutely fucking naked, but of course, no homo, gal pals! Lesbians are not real: 'lesbians' has eight letters, and you know what else has eight letters? 'Assholes' and you know what you put in assholes? Milk! Milk is white, what else is white? Yes, the white iPhone! You know who made the white iPhone? Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs is dead, you know what else is dead? This meme. Lesbians = illuminati confirmed.

"You're my meme queen, for serious." Jamia pulled away, smiling at her naked and incredibly attractive 'gal pal'.

"You're my meme queen, too." Lindsey grinned, pushing a strand of hair behind Jamia's ear.

"Come on, think of something original: we can't both be meme queens." Jamia protested in a manner that was totally out of order for someone who was criticising Lindsey's ceiling placement of the frog meme only minutes ago.

"Fine, you're a meme princess." Lindsey raised her eyebrows. "Better?"

"We shouldn't drink wine when we first wake up, should we?" Jamia giggled, burying her head into Lindsey's shoulder.

"We totally should, my meme princess."

"Oh my god, I love you, and I really meme it."

"Fuck off."

"Don't be meme to me."

-

Ray was sorry, but apologies were never enough, and neither were the long winded text messages you wrote in the early hours of the morning, and only for them to be marked as read or simply just responded to with a one word response, such as 'okay' or 'sorry', or... 'don't'.

Ray was very sorry, but still very in love.

And he wasn't sure what this was, because Ray didn't have a lot of 'things', well, real things with people and love and fluttering hearts and nights when they stayed in bed but never went to sleep, but if Ray knew anything, he knew that it mattered, or at least it had.

Mikey hadn't spoken or even texted one single word to him in near enough two weeks now, and at this point, Ray was supposed to be fully better, but at this point, Ray was just nothing but so much worse.

Ray remembered his dog dying and Mikey and the playground, and everything that was enough to make his head spin.

He remembered croquet in his back yard with Frank and Mikey, because Mikey wanted to impress Alicia Simmons, and he remembered Frank coming out to him, and Pete's crush on Mikey, and Pete's death, and Gee, and everything.

And soon enough, Ray was crying.

Because they'd never be how they were again: they'd never be three best friends playing croquet for the sake of some pretty girl on a Sunday afternoon, they'd grown up, or something, and people change, of course they do, but Ray couldn't help feel like he was to blame.

Frank and Mikey had moved on to different friends, different worlds, different lives perhaps, but Ray Toro remained in his back garden: alone this time, but his thoughts were in the right place, and Ray Toro sat there and wished himself up a happy ending.

But he couldn't.

He had no one to have the aforementioned happy ending with, and he was scared: goddamn he was scared to reach out to Mikey, because he cared what Mikey thought too much, and he was scared to reach out to Frank because the two barely talked anymore, but Frank cared and Frank had always been there for him, and he'd always been there for Frank.

And Ray looked at the sunset and sent his head travelling back through memory and time to the sunny afternoon they spent playing croquet that seemed worlds away now.

Ray called Frank, setting his phone on speaker and let the dial tones act as the sound track for his evening; he didn't expect a response, and the voicemail message was in fact nothing but anticipated, because it was better off this way; this way Ray didn't have to face anything.

He wondered if he'd go to bed like the night before and the night before that, and drift to sleep and think of nothing as he made his way through life like nothing mattered: he wondered if he could do that - he knew he couldn't.

He needed absent matter to fill his mind, and within fifteen minutes and a bus ride, Ray found himself at a certain comic store in a part of town he didn't frequent, but the place made him smile and welcomed him in a weird sort of way.

The cashier met him with a smile, and didn't fail to notice the sorrow upon his face; she got up from what she was doing and made her way across the store. "What's wrong?" She skipped the 'are you okay?' because Sarah Orzechowski already knew the answer.

"I still love him: my ex-boyfriend..." And Ray found himself wrapped in a tight hug before he could even quite figure out what was happening. "We broke up a while ago now, but I miss him- no, it's more than missing: this is loving and my heart can't cope with this, because he won't return my calls, my texts or anything, and my best friend hasn't spoken to me in months. I'm alone, my name is Ray, and I'm alone and I can't apologise enough, because nobody ever listens."

"I'm Sarah, and I'm going to close up this shop and we're going to go into the stockroom and sort this mess out, because you don't deserve to feel like this at all."

Ray just nodded, letting time and the universe slide by around him, blinking, and noticing things again when he found himself sat on a chair in the stockroom with Sarah by his side.

"Tell me his name." Sarah began, gripping Ray's hand in order to comfort him, and ending up putting a little smile on his face as she did so.

"His name's Mikey and he was my best friend, and then he was my boyfriend, and now he's not, and I thought I was fine: I was supposed to be fine, but in reality, things just aren't like that at all."

"You can only get over him or tell him how you feel. This limbo, this fucked up 'I love you but it's a secret' kind of purgatory is what breaks hearts more, not rejection, and I promise you that." Sarah smiled, and it was almost like she was made to do exactly that, because goddamn, Sarah was beautiful when she smiled, in fact, Sarah was beautiful all the time.

"Neither of those seem like viable options, if I'm honest." Ray sighed out, letting out a chuckle.

"They really don't tend to: things would be far too easy that way, but may you could just try telling him, and then, if it doesn't work, you just have to get over him, and there's no limbo - there's no talking yourself out of it... you just do it."

"You just do it?" Ray seemed unconvinced.

"Yeah, you do." And Sarah's words meant more to Ray than anything ever had.

"How do you know exactly what to say?" Ray asked, his eyes widening a little.

"Because, I'm going through exactly the same thing."

"What?"

"His name's Brendon, and... I can't lie to myself about it anymore."

-

 


	40. Milk Fic References With Side Characters

The funeral sucked ass.

Dallon's parents had organised the funeral, and it sucked motherfucking _ass_.

For a start, Brendon wasn't even invited, and Dallon's cousin who he hated had concocted some sort of bullshit speech about how much Dallon would be missed.

They fucking spelt his name wrong on the invite too.

The funeral sucked _ass_.

Andy reckoned that leaving the funeral of your dead friend half way through was probably just about one of the most disrespectful things you could do, however Spencer had argued that there was absolutely nothing more disrespectful in this world that the goddamn funeral itself, and Joe had pointed out that it'd probably be disrespectful if they even continued to put up with this train wreck of an event, so with that the three boys left the church at four in the afternoon and headed off down the road.

Spencer was the first to undo his tie, having loathed every moment he'd felt frozen and restrained in such pointless formality, and especially pointless formality that he _knew_ Dallon would never have cared for.

"This fucking _sucks_." He groaned, untucking his shirt, and taking a moment before just shrugging the suit jacket off his shoulders and onto the ground behind him.

"What's your mum going to say?" Joe asked, gesturing to the suit jacket on the floor, the three stopping for a moment to pay attention to the suit jacket now lying in a heap on the sidewalk.

Spencer shrugged. "I don't know." He was the first to start walking again, "I don't _care_ ," and with that, Andy chuckled, and the other two met his pace.

"This feels kind of wrong, that he gets no proper funeral, I mean." Andy pointed out, glancing to the other two as soon as the words had left his lips.

"I know it does, but what can we do about it?" Joe shrugged, shaking his head firmly, because _fuck_ , Dallon did not deserve this at all. "This is just fucking _unfair_ , I just... it's probably for the best Brendon wasn't invited to this fucking mess, because dear lord I-"

"I know what we can do." Spencer interrupted Joe midsentence, but not with a lack of a good reason, and with both pairs of eyes burning into him, he continued, "we can do the funeral _ourselves_ \- we can give him the funeral he deserves."

"We can't exactly go back in and steal his _coffin_ , can we?" Andy's eyes widened as he even considered the notion of such an atrocity.

"We don't _need_ to, it's like... it's the thought that counts, you know what I mean? I think Dallon can see this all from heaven or wherever the fuck he is right now, and he's most certainly going to care more for the good funeral held by his best friends than the shitty one with the people he hates but where his body just _happens_ to be. And _hey_ , you have to be pretty damn special to get two funerals, don't you?"

"Spencer Smith, you are a motherfucking _genius_!" And it that moment, Joe really could kiss him, but like, _no homo_.

"I know." His lips turned up into a grin.

"Where are we going to like hold it? And when and who are we going to invite?" Andy asked, leaving Joe to roll his eyes and pull his cellphone out of his suit jacket pocket.

"All of our friends: everyone who cares - they'll come, and it can be tonight, that bit of the park where no one goes, and we can have a cross with his name on to represent him or the coffin or whatever, and we can have people who actually care saying things they actually mean, and we can-"

"Joe, don't you think you're getting a little over excited over your friend's funeral?" Spencer raised one eyebrow and Joe just shook his head. "Anyway, what are people going to wear, like who the fuck owns a suit - this is my cousin's."

"People can just wear black: everyone's a fucking gay emo so it's not like getting people to turn up in black clothing is going to be all that hard to accomplish, is it?" Joe rolled his eyes and sent out a mass text kind of weird funeral invite thing. "Right okay, six in the evening, let's get to the park, let's get ready-"

"Tell people to bring alcohol, because I'm really going to need a drink with all the shit I've been through today." Spencer ran a hand back through his hair, cursing to himself, and trying not to break down sobbing in the middle of the street.

"Is that really respectful? Everyone just getting pissed at his funeral?" Andy asked, eyebrows raised slightly.

"Trust me, Dallon wouldn't have given a fuck, he just wants the people he cares about there, it's gonna look like the best fucking funeral in the world compared to the shit his parents are pulling." Spencer met Andy's gaze with a kind of sincerity that he didn't often radiate. "And it's not like his parents aren't going to be downing bottle after bottle of champagne as they chatter to their friends about how fucking _tragic_ this all was."

"His parents didn't deserve him." Joe hadn't quite expected to speak aloud, but the breakdown between his word to thought barrier was now quite apparent. "Sure, he could have been an ass at times, but he was always such a nice guy, and I... I know his parents didn't give the vaguest remnant of a fuck half the time."

"It's not fair." Andy agreed, shaking his head.

"Nothing's ever fair." Spencer let out a sigh, checking his phone to see a message from his dealer, and responding, without a moment's thought, with a quick and simple ' _not tonight'_ , because Dallon was always worth so much more than some goddamn pills, and even someone in as deep as Spencer was knew that.

"God, I- _fuck_ , I... _why_ the fuck did he have to go off with Brendon?" Joe broke down within seconds: fragments of thoughts slowly connecting in his head like a circuit, until finally the bulb lit up and tears began streaming down his face. " _Fuck,_ he doesn't- no it's not his fault, but _fuck_ , I- _I-_ he'd survived the overdose, and just with medication, he-"

"Joe, it's no one's fault, okay?" Andy stopped, pulling his friend into a hug, letting Joe fucking ruin his over priced shirt with his tears, because he knew for certain that his best fucking friend meant so much more to him that a suit his mum was going to scream at him for messing up.

"I know." Joe mumbled, pulling away. "It's just hard, sometimes."

"Of course it is." Spencer added, putting an arm around Joe. "Everything would be too easy otherwise, and where's the fun in that?"

"The _fun_?" Joe stared at him in disbelief.

"Oh, you know what I mean, look, if the funeral his parents had organised had never been shit, then we'd never get the opportunity to honour him in our own way - look for the good in the bad, if you know what I mean?"

"I really don't."

"Alright then, Mr 'Cup Half Empty'."

" _Shut up_."

-

Ryan could think of much better wastes of an afternoon as opposed to sitting by the shitty ass canal, but when it came to sitting by the shitty ass canal with _Brendon Urie_ , he couldn't think of anything he could possibly want to do more.

Except perhaps Brendon Urie himself.

But that most certainly wasn't a thought that Ryan was going to vocalise, let alone _admit_ to himself, because no matter what Joe Trohman told him earlier this week at seven in the morning, he was most certainly _not_ going to let himself get back with Brendon.

After all, it hadn't worked out the first time, so why should this be any different?

But Ryan didn't quite get the time to lie to himself about the answer to that question before Brendon was speaking for the first time in at least twenty minutes.

"I wasn't even invited to the funeral, you know?"

Ryan nodded, unsure as to just _what_ to say to this, because he'd quite honestly never heard Brendon's voice sound so raw and just _hurt_.

"His parents, when his was in hospital, well they put on this apologetic act, like they actually gave a shit all of a sudden, and it was kind of late, but better than nothing, I guess, but I never told him about the times they just told me to get the fuck out of there." Brendon's whole body began to shake a little as he continued. "They didn't like... the idea of _us,_ and I just... I knew that once Dallon was out of hospital and one hundred percent in their control, I would never fucking see him again- it sounds _selfish_ , but I... that's why I did what I did."

Ryan sat there in shell-shocked silence for a moment. "There's always more to everything with you, isn't there?"

Brendon shrugged it off, leaning just a little closer to Ryan. "I guess."

"You should tell people these things, you know? This is why people misjudge and misunderstand you, because they don't get the full picture, like they don't get your side of the story." Ryan blushed a little under Brendon's gaze, turning away in what was probably the least subtle gesture ever in a lacklustre effort to conceal his flushed pink cheeks.

Brendon waited a moment, deep in thought, before responding. "I told you." 

"You should tell other people, not just me, I'm not the fucking secret to everything, Brendon, look, I know you're not exactly a 'open' person, but, if you keep everything up inside you, it's really not going to bode well."

Brendon stopped for a moment, glancing out across the water, and in a rather gutsy move, taking Ryan's hand.

The milkier of the two stopped breathing for a just a moment, before squeezing Brendon's hand in reciprocation of the gesture, because this was just a comfort thing, wasn't it? Not _everything_ had to be homo, did it?

"I tell Sarah things sometimes, and I told Dallon, but it's always you the most." Brendon admitted, not quite having the guts to meet Ryan's gaze as he spoke, so he settled upon watching the blood orange hues of the sunset claim the baby blue day skies.

"What's with that? Like you have to date someone to trust them properly?" Ryan found his gaze falling upon Brendon's in an unplanned and hasty move. "Best friends are a thing too, you know?"

"Relationships are like... more built on _trust_ , you know, like 'I love you' means more than 'you're my best friend'- _fuck_ , what would _I_ know about trust in relationships?" Brendon pulled his hand away from Ryan's and the two sat in silence for a good few minutes, until Ryan spoke up with perhaps what Brendon would have least expected in the whole damn world.

"One mistake doesn't define who you are for your whole life, you know that, don't you?"

"It was a pretty big mistake-"

"Brendon, look, when you're thirty is it really going to matter that when you were a teenager you cheated on two people? No, no it's not, you'll probably be married to someone you love a lot by then, and you know what, you're gonna be happy, I promise you."

"You can't make that promise." Brendon shook his head the milkiest boy in the whole damn world.

"Fucking watch me, Brendon Urie." Ryan grabbed a stone from the gravel at the bank, and began to scratch on the paving stone the two were sat on, scoring the footpath by the canal with white scratching that read ' _I promise. Ryan._ '.

"Alright, what are you? A fucking fourteen year old girl?" Brendon scoffed, but didn't hesitate to take the stone from Ryan's hand and sign his own name below Ryan's.

"Says you." Ryan raised his eyebrows at the rather permanent mark on the paving stone, as Brendon threw the stone into the canal, watching it sink with a sigh. "Anything else you reckon you should tell me?"

"The real reason Gabe and I aren't on good terms anymore is because I... I had _feelings_ for him, and well, Gabe's _Gabe_ , and then William Beckett, and suddenly everything was about this 'perfect little sunshine boy', and I-" Brendon shook his head, grabbing another stone and carving ' _fuck Gabe Saporta'_ into the paving stone, before throwing it into the canal. "I fucking hope he sees that."

Ryan's face cracked into a smile. "I hope so too. Sarah tried talking to him for help when you were missing with Dallon, and I mean he didn't exactly help all that much... neither did I though... _fuck_ , Sarah was pretty much the only one who gave a fuck, I'm _sorry_ , I-"

"We weren't on good terms then, it's not your fault." Brendon smiled, grabbing another stone and writing _'Ryan Ross is amazing'_ on the paving stone, before once again, throwing it into the canal.

Ryan shook his head, grabbing a stone and writing _'Brendon Urie has a massive forehead'_ , however Brendon grabbed the stone, before Ryan could throw it into the canal, and drew a line through forehead and wrote _'dick_ ' below it, and only then did he throw the stone into the canal.

Ryan shrugged it off, "it's not _that_ big." Brendon wasn't amused to say the least, and met Ryan with a look of disappointment. "Oh come on, Brenny, it's not like I don't have first hand experience, is it?"

"Well, I'm sorry that I can't compare to your _monstercock_ , Mr Ross-"

"Mr Ross? Who the fuck do you think you _are_?"

"A classy motherfucker?" Brendon asked, raising one eyebrow.

"More like a whiny little bitchboy." 

" _Bitchboy?"_

"Bitchboy."

Brendon grabbed a stone, writing _'Bitchboy_ ' on the paving stone, only this time, he didn't throw the stone into the canal, but at Ryan's fucking head.

-

Gabe felt an awkward sort of guilty.

An awkward sort of guilty where you _knew_ that in a way, it was your fault.

It wasn't _really_ , but he knew deep inside that if he'd at least been there for Brendon, Dallon might still be here.

Because again, _in a way_ , it was kind of Brendon's fault, but of course, Gabe was in absolutely no position to start blaming people, and he _knew_ that.

But when it actually came to calling Brendon, and physically apologising to the guy, he just _couldn't_ do it.

And he knew that it was simply nothing more than his own cowardice holding him back.

And in that cowardice, he made his way out of his house, walking down the road for a good five minutes, with a straight beeline past Brendon's house, perhaps just to reinforce his cowardice as he turned down the little path that led into the forest; he just needed space to think, or time to waste, or something like that.

He just needed an excuse and the forest provided him exactly that as he let one foot fall in front of the other in a desperate attempt to get himself lost in here, and wondering with some last ditch attempt whether he should even make much of an effort in getting out of this place alive.

Gabe hated how he _only_ started to give a fuck now, how _only_ after it was too late, and _only_ with him and William having an argument, because Gabe was fucking selfish, and fucking _alone_ , and he fucking _deserved_ it.

And it was too late for a sorry, not that he could even bring himself to utter one, because as he stood alone in the forest, Gabe Saporta knew that it had been him that had fucked this all up for the guy he had once called his best friend.

And _meant_ it.

And well, Gabe didn't have an awful lot of best friends that he actually wanted, or friendships where the caring was mutual, for that matter.

" _Gabe-?"_ He jumped at the sudden intrusion of a voice, because of course, he most definitely did not deserve the luxury of being alone right now.

" _Sarah_." He looked the girl up and down, swallowing hard as he did so, because he _knew_ , he just _knew_ what he'd done, and not only to Brendon and Dallon, but to Sarah Orzechowski too.

"Are you _okay_?" She stressed, grabbing his hand and meeting his gaze. "Fuck- you, you look like you're about to cry, Gabe Saporta, what the hell is wrong?"

"You don't _hate_ me?" He paused for a moment, unable to comprehend the fact that he hadn't been punched in the face yet.

"No, I- why would I, Gabe? Don't be silly, come on, just tell me what's wrong I-"

"I was a dick to you about Brendon and Dallon, and now Dallon's dead and it's my fault and Bill fucking hates me, and all I cared about was Bill and Brendon was fucking in pain, and Dallon overdosed and Brendon called me because he needed me there for comfort, but William, fuck, he was sucking my dick and I said no- I chose a _blowjob_ over potentially saving someone's life, I'm the shittiest fucking person in the whole goddamn world and we both know it-"

"Gabe, come on, calm down, you're not, you're really not, now could you possibly exclaim at a reasonable pace and with less hyperventilation?" She raised one eyebrow, cracking a smile, and Gabe nodded as she took his hand and the two began to walk down the path, well, Sarah was kind of _dragging_ him, but whatever.

"I- I- what's with the hand holding- _I_...?" Gabe panicked a little, his cheeks flushing an awkward shade of red, because Sarah Orzechowski had quite honestly been everything he wasn't expecting and all at the same time.

"It's nothing, don't make a fuss over it, I'm just being nice." She smiled, but to Gabe, it was kind of like a slap in the face, because that's how it always was with everyone: just being _nice_.

"Bill kind of heard about Dallon, and we started talking about it, and I told him how I'd, I'd like- _ignored_ Brendon for him, and well, I don't know, but he freaked the fuck out, and I haven't seen or heard from him at all for two days, and it's fucking me up, because he didn't even say anything about us: we were just arguing, and he just walked out, and I just, I can't even _contact_ him, and fuck, I don't even know: my head just fucking _aches_."

"If it's anyone's fault, it's _Brendon's_." Gabe practically jumped at that, his gaze flying up to meet Sarah's with a look of utter astonishment upon his face. "But it's _no one's_ fault, okay? But _hypothetically,_ it still wouldn't be yours; I know you're a good guy, Gabe, and you don't deserve this. I assume William just feels guilty too, I mean, he was involved with the blowjob too, or at least I assume, because I highly doubt you can suck your own dick-"

"If you get some of your ribs removed you can." Gabe added with a small smile, and Sarah just shook her head in disbelief.

"Men are disgusting."

"Then why do you date them, Sarah, the token straight girl who hangs out with lesbians and gay dudes, and then _whatever the fuck_ Brendon is, because I doubt he even knows if I'm honest."

Sarah shrugged it off. "I've never really thought about dating a girl, so I guess, I just don't _want_ to, but of course, that could change, couldn't it? I could meet a girl, and maybe I could fall for her, but I don't know, it's unlikely anyway."

"Do you think Brendon dating you was just a one time thing or do you think he likes girls as well as guys?"

"I don't have a clue, if I'm honest, after all, no one would know better than Brendon himself and I reckon he's pretty unsure too, but I do know that there's definitely something going on between him and Ryan again."

"Ryan forgave him?" Gabe exclaimed, pausing for a moment, his brow furrowing. "I’ve heard a lot about their relationship and I really did _not_ see that one coming."

"Neither did I; Brendon was staying at mine, and then Ryan came over, just to talk to me: he didn't know that Brendon was there, but then the two made eye contact and I thought I was going to have to sort out some fight here, but no, they just _hugged_ , and now they barely leave each other's side."

"It's weird, because I think Brendon _always_ loved Ryan, _always_ , deep down, like _soulmates_ , or something, I don't know, but still he dated you and Dallon, and I don't get that."

"Brendon doesn't love himself, that's the problem." Sarah paused, meeting Gabe's eyes. "Behind all that ego, there's a fucking terrified boy who we wouldn't even recognise; the boy who lost his father, the boy who lost Dallon, the boy so in love with Ryan that it scares him, the boy that Brendon keeps hidden away, because Brendon _is_ that boy, and he's so fucking _scared_."

-

"You look _homeless_."

And he did.

"You're pretty though, that's new."

And he was.

William Beckett was curled up on a park bench in fucking _sweatpants_ and _Gabe's_ shirt, and he hadn't even noticed until ten minutes ago and that had literally just made his life at least ten times worse.

He hadn't exactly planned storming out of Gabe's house after what was easily the worst argument they'd ever had very well at all, but he hadn't expected it at all either.

He jumped a little as the bench dipped beside him and the man sat down, offering him a cigarette, which he declined with the shake of his head.

"Good, don't start, I swear all the pretty boys smoke and I reckon they're all going to die of bloody cancer before I ever have a chance with them." The man broke into a grin as he lit his cigarette. "It's a _hard_ life."

"I'm not actually homeless." Bill added after a moment, blushing a little, because well, okay, for sure he wasn't in the best of states, but he didn't exactly reckon that he looked _homeless_ , did he?

"I know." The man leaned back against the back of the bench, focusing his gaze upon the sunset as he smoked in silence for a moment. "I'm Bert. Do you have a name or did mummy tell you not to talk to strangers?"

"Fuck off, I'm not eight." Bill didn't even know if he was even going to grant this guy the luxury of his offense, because what the fuck, it was quite easily the dumbest joke he'd ever heard.

"You've got a baby face, come on, we can all see that." Bert turned back to the boy with a grin that William considered slapping off his face. "I'm twenty seven, how about you?"

"Eighteen." He blushed a little, because this dude was fucking nine years older than him, and in that moment they both knew it. "You don't look twenty seven, you look like you're in your early twenties, you know?"

"You don't look eighteen, you look like you're in your early teens, you know?" And William slapped him, because he deserved it.

"Well, if I look so young, stop hitting on me."

"I'm not _hitting on you_..." Bert paused for a moment, and met William's gaze. "You are kind of cute, though."

"You called me a pretty boy-"

"That isn't me hitting on you, that's just a fact." And well, that took Bill by surprise, to say the least. "Now, you never did tell me your name."

"Bill, well _William_ , but Bill... _Bill_." 

"Cute, you're _cute_."

"I thought you weren't-"

"Maybe I changed my mind." Bert grinned, putting his arm around Bill in the least discreet gesture known to mankind _ever_. "So tell me, why are you sat here like a homeless dude?"

"I had an argument with my boyfriend- well probably ex-boyfriend at this point, it's complicated, like really fucking complicated, but basically Gabe, my boyfriend has this friend called Brendon, who was dating this kid called Dallon-"

"Dallon Weekes?" Bert raised an eyebrow, not exactly having expected that all the cute boys that were just a little too young for him all vaguely knew each other and lived in some sort of cult together, or at least that was how Bert imagined.

" _Yeah_...?"

"My housemate, Gee, he dated him a while back but then they broke up and I'm not exactly caught up but there's a lot of shit and now he's back with this guy called Frank and I'm not a hundred percent sure as to what the fuck is going on here at all-"

"Dallon's dead." 

" _Oh_?" 

"It was a really big mess with Brendon, who has a massive forehead and an obsession with milk or something, I don't know, Gabe and Brendon sort of stopped being friends when I started dating Gabe and then there was this mess with Dallon overdosing and Gabe not being there for Brendon, and then, I don't know I kind of blamed Gabe for Dallon's death and things got really out of hand and I just fucking stormed out."

"You've got somewhere to stay though, haven't you?" Bert asked, wondering just when he'd started to support the idea that his house was practically acting like some sort of orphanage for the gay emos with family issues, but William was cute, and _technically_ single and Bert wasn't drunk enough to fuck this up, or at least he reckoned so.

"I'll be fine-" Bill stopped for a moment, looking down and running it through his head for a moment, before turning back to Bert, biting his lip and smiling a little before continuing, "actually, _no_."

" _Oh_?" Bert smiled a little. "Are you _hitting on me_? Why are you hitting on me if I'm so old- and your _boyfriend_ -"

"My ex-boyfriend- I want revenge and pitysex and-"

"Who said anything about _fucking_?" Bert raised his eyebrows, but before he could continue, Bill was kissing him; it wasn't much, short, simple, but in no way dignified, _messy_ , sloppy, even, but _necessary_.

"This is the trashiest thing you're ever going to do, basically." Bill let out a sigh, leaning into Bert's side a little. "Not for me, though... my mum, my mum's, well, a bible basher, and I'm a flaming homosexual so that's going well already, and I wanted to come out, fuck I _needed_ to, so I had a stupid idea: I was going to tell her that I loved Jesus, and then be like, this is my boyfriend, Jesus, and then kiss him. Gabe played Jesus, and well we ended up dating after that, but she didn't like it, I got kicked out and I had to live with Gabe, which was alright but-"

"Technically you _are_ homeless." Bert paused for a moment, before turning to face Bill with an odd kind of sympathy in his eyes. "You were going to decline somewhere to stay- you-"

"It's fine, I'm... I don't want to be dead weight, you have your own life and I- look it's difficult, I didn't want to explain, because you wouldn't want to understand-"

Bert remained silent for a moment, just holding Bill a little closer to him before continuing, "my parents kicked me out too, you know? It was years and years ago now, but, it's still difficult. They didn't kick me out for being bi, though, it... they well, they weren't nice people..."

"They abused you?"

Bert nodded. 

"I don't really want to talk about it: I _don't_ , but, _yeah_ , I... I _fuck_ , this is amazing, I'm crying, and you're homeless and cute and totally going to sleep with me, but I'm crying and pathetic and-"

Bill kissed him again, and the two just sat there in silence for entirely too long, because that was the first good thing the both of them had had in an awfully long time.

"You know? That's not the trashiest thing I'm ever going to do. You know, Gee, my housemate? Well his boyfriend Frank doesn't exactly like me, but there was this time I started dating his mum and oh my god she introduced him to me and it was fucking _ridiculous_ , I- we didn't last, obviously."

"I dare you to start dating my mum, she's married, but just kill my dad or whatever-"

"Or whatever?"

"Or whatever."

-

Darkness hung over the scene like thick black smoke, the corner of the park empty besides the few teenagers that had gathered there for a reason that only they could really know. The gathering was lit by cellphone torches and a small bonfire kind of thing that Spencer had assembled in the middle with the help of a few logs and a shoddy lighter than never worked as well as you really wanted it to.

More people had turned up than the trio could have anticipated for, but everyone remained respectful, and stood in a circle filled with the low buzz of conversation and the click of several lighters, as everyone waited and watched as Joe Trohman, the appointed priest at their make shift funeral placed their makeshift, but most certainly heartfelt representation of Dallon into the ground and cleared his throat.

And in that instant, he had the whole world's attention, or at least the attention of the people that actually mattered, the people gathered here.

"Before we start, does anyone want to say something, or, well, just say anything really, I mean, I've never exactly held a funeral for my dead best friend before, so like, constructive criticism is accepted too." Joe gained a quiet kind of nervous laughter from the crowd, and was left to watch as eventually Lindsey Ballato stepped forward.

"You're doing great, it's the thought that matters okay." She glanced quickly at the cross with Dallon's name scribbled on it in what she really suspected was in fact eyeliner, before continuing, "I never really knew him, but I certainly met him a few times when he was dating Gee, and I can very easily say that he was always so nice, and he never deserved this." She nodded at Joe, before stepping back into the circle of people and grabbing Jamia's hand.

"Anyone else- wait, let's just, let's go around in a circle, and we can just each say something, it doesn't have to be much, or you can have a full prepared speech, it doesn't matter, it's just the thought, okay? We're doing a million times better than his parents are and that's very by giving one single fuck." He paused for a moment, meeting Brendon's eyes across the circle, his gaze trailing down Brendon's arm to his hand and the way it was linked with Ryan's; he smiled to himself before continuing.  "I'll start, Dallon was such a great friend, and I love him very much, and I just wish I could have done more to help him with his problems before it was too late."

Joe turned to Andy, "he was always there for everyone, and he always cared so much, but he just never let people help him, and I will always regret not trying harder."

Spencer let out a sigh, holding his cigarette between two fingers and glancing at the little makeshift cross, "he was always my best friend, and I remember sixth grade and the grapes and I remember him always being there and I don't think anything will ever be the same again, but he's in heaven now, and I hope to God himself, that he's having a nice time up there."

"He'll be with Pete in heaven." Ryan added, pulling his hand away from Brendon's as attention fell upon him. "I reckon Pete would like him. And I never knew him much myself, but Brendon cares an awful lot for him, and I care an awful lot about Brendon, and in turn, _anyone_ that Brendon cares about."

A scarlet red blush hugged Brendon's cheek as he began to speak, "H-he f-fuck... I don't want to be the first one to cry here, but he was _everything_ and my whole life is flashbacks... flashbacks to that park and we were there and those swings and 'I love you's but 'I love you's too late and then him sleeping but never waking up and calling the ambulance and calling Sarah and-" Brendon stopped, Ryan pulling him tightly into a hug as Ray took the liberty of continuing.

"I wish I could have known him better, but I didn't, and no one should ever feel like he did, and life is really not fair sometimes." Ray did all he could not to glance at Mikey, as Sarah stepped forward to speak.

"He was a miracle worker, if I'm honest, because if anyone can make Brendon Urie admit that he loves them more than he loves himself then they have to be a goddamn miracle worker. He didn't deserve his eating disorder and everything, he was beautiful and I just wish I could have found him and Brendon before it was too late."

Kitty gave Sarah a reassuring kind of hug, "I don't think I ever really met the guy, but if he means so much to all of you, then he has to be pretty fucking special."

Jamia smiled a little as she stepped forward, Lindsey's having already spoken, "I guess this is me apologising for punching him in the face, but you've got to be pretty damn amazing to not be Frank Iero and still make Gee Way fall for you, just saying." 

Her words were followed by a few small giggles, as Frank stepped forward, blushing like hell itself, "I wish I could have known him better, I guess, he was the guy that dated my boyfriend and I never thought much more of him, but really he was the guy with a monster inside his mind, and I just wish that he could have been helped before the monster ate him in the end."

Gee Way, donning brand new, bright red dyed hair, stepped forward, "I know, I dyed my hair, fantastic, it looks hot, I know, Frank has told me many times, but this is about Dallon, and I'm his ex-boyfriend and he was beautiful and amazing and always there. He helped me with an alcohol problem, and I tried to help him with his problems with eating, but the guy's stubborn, perhaps even more stubborn than me, and he didn't deserve for things to be this way."

Mikey nodded at his brother as he began to speak, "I wasn't much aware of the guy, but I hope he and Pete are okay up in heaven, and I hope they're happy, because no one should ever deserve to be anything but happy."

It was Alicia's turn next, and with a can of beer in hand, she did her best to utter something worth anyone's time, "I didn't know him, in fact, I don't know quite a few of you, and I'm sorry about that, and I'm sorry that he's dead, because no one ever deserves to die."

Bob stepped forward next, and just about everyone knew that this was going to be the funeral speech of the fucking century. "He was pretty and I was there when he was with Gee a few times, and he was really nice and no one deserves to die, as Alicia said, she's right about everything, you know? Anyway, I would have totally given him free weed if I knew him, because he seems like a pretty dope guy, and I hope he has fun in heaven, even though I don't believe in God, I believe he should get his own heaven, I also believe that it should be the law to have a swimming pool in your house, but that's besides the point. I also like milk, thank you for your time- oh, and in other news, I'm considering running for president-"

" _Bob_." Alicia grabbed his hand and pulled him back with a whispered apology in Joe's direction.

Bert stepped forward, with a few raised eyebrows from the crowd, because it wasn't like he was the most respectful person in the world, was it? "Not going to lie, didn't really like the guy, but suicide, no, no one deserves feeling like that."

And to say the least, more than a few people were just a little surprised to see Bill Beckett beside him, but very little was said. "He was a nice guy, as I've heard, and Gabe should have been nicer to Brendon when he lost him."

And in that moment, everyone became overly aware of the absence of Gabe Saporta.

"Where _is_ Gabe?" Spencer piped up, as Joe pressed the cross into the ground, and stepped back into the circle.

"He said he was going to make his own way here." Sarah added, gaining just a few looks from the crowd. "I let him sleep on my sofa, but then I woke him up with the news about the funeral and he went home to get changed or something-"

"Maybe he's late." Gee pointed out.

"Or maybe, like always, he just doesn't give a _fuck_." Bill's bitter comment gained very little of a response, because right now, _no one_ was in the mood.

"Do you think we should look for him?" Sarah asked, directing her question more so in Joe's direction.

"He wasn't there for Brendon when he needed him so why the fuck should we care about him?" Bill was persistent, and Bert McCracken, the only person he'd listen to at this point, showed very little interest in stopping him.

"Because it's the right thing to do." Joe finished, glaring in his direction just a little. "He could be in trouble."

"Like I give a fuck." And with that, Bill stormed off, Bert at his heels, with no form of apology nor explanation.

-


	41. A Bunch Of No Homo Kids Doing No Homo Things

Gabe Saporta was alive.

Which was a start, to say the least, because this way, at least there didn't have to be another damn funeral, because Spencer had totally trashed his suit and he'd have to buy a new one if there was to be another funeral, so with Gabe staying alive, he had saved Spencer Smith a good fifty dollars, so that was good.

Gabe Saporta wasn't exactly in the best state of mind though.

Of course, that kind of went without saying, but it needed to be said, it really did.

Because Gabe had tried to be sorry and Gabe had tried to put on a suit and go to the funeral, but quite honestly, fucking drowning himself seemed far more fun.

And so Gabe rolled a dice that night, because chance itself was the only thing that hadn't destroyed him yet: even, he stays, odd, he goes.

The dice landed on a number three.

And Gabe rolled it again, best out of three or something equally cowardly like that.

The dice landed on a number one.

And Gabe rolled it _again_ , because all or nothing, because spiritually, he was Phil Lester.

The dice landed on a number five.

And Gabe was fucked, and Gabe felt like drowning himself, like for fucking serious this time.

Perhaps he'd just lay down in his bathtub, and let the water run indefinitely. Perhaps he'd like that, perhaps he was overreacting, perhaps he was just too fucked up for his own good, but whatever it was, his bathtub smelled oddly of milk, and Gabe Saporta did not want to die smelling of milk.

So, fuck it, Gabe went; he grabbed a jacket and locked the front door behind him and didn't look back, and he most certainly didn't look as he walked past the park, because it was just ' _he goes_ ', and never, absolutely _never_ , was it specified as to where.

Gabe could fucking walk to Mexico if he wanted, and a part of him kind of liked the adventure, and of course, impracticality of that idea, but it felt like freedom and a perfect reminder of a funeral he didn't want to go to and a crowd of people he couldn't face.

It had been alright when he'd had Bill, because there was some sort of 'love' thing there, and he didn't ever doubt that Bill would slap anyone who talked shit about his boyfriend, but of course, he didn't ever expect that Bill Beckett himself would be the one talking the shit.

Fuck, well, life was just full of fucking surprises.

And Gabe made a mental not to curse the entire world as he made his way down a street that he didn't know well enough.

He didn't know an awful lot of this town, and he didn't know an awful lot of the people, and he didn't quite know why he was confining himself to the same area and the same few people, because he could just start again, he didn't have to _ever_ go to that funeral, or face those people again, because the world was big, and even his ego was relatively small in comparison.

He could make new friends, he could find a new boyfriend, he could have a fucking new life, but he couldn't quite see it actually happening at all.

And as Gabe Saporta found himself sitting down a top a hill on the outskirts of town, near the woods, he found himself thinking about the time when he'd dated Pete Wentz, because goddamn, that seemed like a million years ago, and it seemed very much like the Gabe Saporta who'd dated Pete Wentz was a different Gabe Saporta altogether.

He smiled to himself, because fucking in Pete's bedroom, and that one condom hidden behind that photo of Jesus, and he even dared to think if it was still there.

He wondered how things would be if Pete was still alive, and in turn, he wondered how things would be if Dallon was still alive, and of course, if he'd just treated Brendon with some goddamn respect before he fucked his whole life up.

Gabe laughed at himself, because he fucking deserved it, letting out a sigh as he did so.

He remembered being Jesus and he remembered meeting William Beckett for the first time, and how the rest of world just seemed to stop for a moment because of this one fucking boy.

And _god_ save him, because Gabe Saporta was in love with William Beckett - _present_ tense, not past, and god fucking _kill_ him, because William Beckett did not feel the same.

And with such a realisation like that, Gabe reckoned he'd probably prefer drowning himself - milk or not.

But he didn't want to be the third fucked up kid, because this was turning low-key into the hunger games or something, and the thought of that made him laugh just a little more than he should have done.

"You okay?" He jumped a little as a wild Sarah Orzechowski appeared, taking a seat beside him on the grass.

"Don't you have a funeral to be at?" He asked, biting his lip and making an effort _not_ to meet her gaze.

"I could say the same for you." She pointed out with a small smile. "It's over now anyway, people are looking for you- I was worried, you know, thought you could be in trouble, or something-"

"Why are you always so _nice_?" Gabe interrupted her with a particularly blunt question. "I just, I'm an asshole, everyone's a fucking asshole to you, to everyone, and you don't give a fuck, you're just _nice_."

"Because I've learned that there's always more to people than meets the eye, and never once have I been proved wrong." She met Gabe's gaze with an unexpected confidence. "And you're not going to prove me wrong either, I _know_ that, so I don't think it's fair that everyone just abandons you for one mistake you made."

"I caused Dallon's death, practically-"

"No, Dallon caused his own death, come on, Gabe, just look at me." And he did, and if Sarah was honest, she wasn't particularly expecting that. "You were an asshole, but that doesn't define you: you did a stupid thing but you're not a stupid person."

"The faith you have in everyone is fucking unbelievable, Sarah, I tell you that."

"I just have this kind of faith in you." She smiled, leaning a little closer to Gabe.

"Oh, do you say that to everyone?"

"What do you think?"

And Gabe paused for a moment, leaning closer but stopping him, because for a minute there, _he_ , a gay guy, was about to kiss Sarah Orzechowski, and _nope_ , because fuck, he was not going to pull a Brendon Urie right now.

"I think you're too nice to admit that you do." Gabe finished pulling away.

Sarah nodded, blushing a little. "Yeah, something like that."

-

"Don't you think he's a little too young for you?" Gee Way stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the kitchen table, his feet resting on the surface of the table, and with such a blunt and direct greeting, Bert didn't even dare to ask him to move his feet.

"And Frank's not too young for you?" Bert took a seat opposite Gee, the two having the house mostly to themselves for the first time in a long while; Alicia and Bob had gone on some sort of date or something, Frank was actually at home for once, Mikey was out meeting someone, god knows who, but _someone_ , and Bill, the newest resident of the Bert McCracken big brother house, was curled up fast asleep in Bert's bed.

"It's different with Frank." Gee let out a sigh, as he began to light another cigarette, because by this point, the twenty five year old had very little regard for his lungs whatsoever.

"How is it?" The older man was unconvinced, and well he had reason to be, because he and Gee were about the same age, and Bill and Frank were both seventeen.

"Because I _love_ Frank and I didn't just snap him up and take advantage of him immediately- in fact, I didn't take advantage of him at all, but Frank and I have been dating for months and months now, and you and Bill... a few _days_ , at most."

Bert shrugged Gee's accusations off, refusing to see things in the same way. "Hey, how the fuck am I taking advantage of him? Surely I'm being nice by giving him a place to stay, because otherwise, the kid is fucking _homeless_ , you got that?"

" _The kid_." Gee repeated with a sigh, taking a drag of his cigarette. "That _kid_ is your boyfriend. You think of him as a _kid_ , not someone equal and mature to you. Frank's not some _kid_ , Frank's my boyfriend, a person I love."

"They're both still the same age." Bert pointed out, dancing awkwardly around Gee's point with varying levels of effectiveness.

"It's maturity and attitude, not necessarily just _age_ , Bert, now come on, weren't you the very guy who was down my throat about Frank's age when I first met him?" Gee raised an eyebrow, watching as Bert blushed a little, because fuck, yeah, Gee was right.

"Opinions change." He continued to shrug it off. "Look, he's cute, and he likes me and I like him, and he needs a place to stay, what the fuck is wrong with it?"

"You fucked him last night." Gee certainly made no effort when it came to being discreet, and it was evident. "I _heard_. Sometimes I reckon you don't even notice you do it, but you manipulate, you _fuck_ with people, Bert."

"And you don't, like when you told everyone I raped you, because you didn't want little Frankie to know-"

" _Bert_ , I was fucking drunk, and you never asked for permission, so fucking technically-"

"Then why are you still here if I'm such a villain, huh?" Bert raised his eyebrows at that. "And let’s not forget the little secrets you’ve keeping from Frank, shall we?”

"Because where am I supposed to go? With Mikey, as well, I've got him to think about, you know?"

"Oh, I _know_." Bert lit himself a cigarette, meeting Gee's gaze, before continuing. "Mikey's not as bad as I thought he would be, honestly, kid's nice, he-"

"He's scared of you." Gee stopped him, narrowing his eyes a little. "He's fucking _scared_. Is Bill scared of you too?"

"Are _you_ scared of me too, Gee? Am I the fucking big bad wolf?"

"I'm not scared of you, fuck off, you're just... you're just an asshole, Bert." Gee shook his head, turning away to glance at the kitchen. "I think Bob took a six pack of beer on his way out, you know?"

"It's fine with me if he doesn't come back." Bert retorted, scowling a little at the door of the alcohol cupboard: slightly ajar.

"You really hate people being here so much?" Gee raised his eyebrows, watching as Bert paused for a moment, silent, before continuing.

"Bob and Alicia are annoying as fuck, and I reckon there's absolutely no getting rid of Frank with you around- hey, where even is he today?" Bert only just came to notice Frank's absence.

"At home, his actual home with his mum, apparently she has a new boyfriend, so I assume he'll be back in a few hours ready to punch someone or something."

Bert smirked a little, chuckling to himself. "Remember when I dated his mum?"

"Dear fucking god, don't- why the _fuck_ did you think that was a good idea?" Gee shook his head in disbelief, but then again, perhaps a middle aged mother was better than a seventeen year boy with a kind of boyfriend.

"I don't know. Good idea at the time or something." Bert shrugged it off, and Gee wouldn't be all that surprised if he'd simply been too stoned at the time to remember.

"So is that what Bill is? Another good idea at the time?" Gee asked, adamant to make some kind of point with this whole Bill Beckett mess.

"I don't know right now, I really don't. Maybe he will be, maybe he won't, he maybe me and him are the next you and Frank?"

Gee looked unconvinced. "And where does Gabe Saporta stand in all of this?"

"Gabe Saporta isn't my problem."

"He really is, because if Bill Beckett is enough of your problem to be sharing your bed and living in your house, then his not quite ex-boyfriend is more than just a little reason for concern." Gee paused, peering down the corridor and making sure that Bill was still asleep and not listening in, before continuing. "Why did they even break up?"

"He reckons it's Gabe's fault that Dallon kid you dated is dead."

"That's fucked up, that's seriously fucked up- you don't seriously agree with him, do you?" Gee retorted, his eyes widening as he looked Bert up and down.

"I have very little opinion of the situation, Bill's just cute and he needs a place to stay and I'm just the _nice guy_."

"The phrase 'nice guy' makes me want to punch you in the face, not going to lie." Gee took another drag of his cigarette, watching Bert's reaction with a small smile upon his lips.

"Fucking go ahead, Gee, fucking go ahead."

"You're not worth the effort, buddy." Gee shook his head to himself, moving his legs from the table and getting up, making his way to the kitchen and peering into the alcohol cupboard. "Yeah, Bob totally took the beer."

" _Fuck_."

-

The whole _thing_ between Ryan and Brendon was absolutely nothing less than complicated, and there was absolutely no other word for it than ' _thing_ ', because neither Ryan nor Brendon could possibly put any kind of words to their feelings about one another and themselves right now.

Brendon had insisted upon going home, and with reluctance, but eventually, Sarah had let him, and the two boys sat upstairs in Brendon's bedroom, the silence of the empty house only amplifying the tension between the two of them.

Because perhaps holding Brendon's hand to make him feel better had been the best thing Ryan Ross had ever done, or perhaps, _perhaps_ , it had simply been the worst, because of course, as it always was like this, it was nothing more than impossible to tell.

The two had sat in silence for at least fifteen minutes now, both boys on Brendon's bed, knees pulled up to their chests, but with Brendon with his back to the headboard, and Ryan sat at the opposite end, his gaze kind of fixated on the open window and the view of the forest from where he was, because the view from Brendon Urie's bedroom window was indeed nothing short of beautiful, but neither Brendon nor Ryan had never cared enough to note it, and surely that said a lot, but really it said nothing at all.

Because it was better soon than later, and Ryan hadn't moved his gaze for a good five minutes now, and it was much the same for Brendon, except the boy with the bigger forehead wasn't staring at the view, well, he _was_ , he was staring at Ryan, because in his head, _Ryan_ was the view.

But of course, he never said it aloud, and Ryan was too distracted by the world outside to notice, and things could easily stay exactly like that for another fifteen minutes, or perhaps another fifteen hours, or perhaps another fifteen _years_.

Because Brendon Urie didn't doubt at all that he'd be thirty two and still staring at Ryan Ross' ass, and perhaps Ryan didn't doubt the same.

Brendon didn't know what he wanted to do with his life at all, in fact, Brendon kind of didn't know what he _could_ do with his life at all, because his whole damn world seemed to be trying not to thinking about Dallon, and promising Sarah that he was okay, and blushing when thinking about Ryan, and avoiding his family, especially his mum's boyfriend, and that would never be enough, but it was still _everything_.

And Brendon didn't like that.

He thought of a few months prior, before him and Ryan had ever broken up at all, when Pete had died, but Patrick was still mostly okay, and Ryan's best friend and still in this town, and when Brendon's biggest problems were the boy his boyfriend spent too much time with and the girl at the comic book store.

And it was stupid how things grew and become the things you'd never expect, but that was life: nothing without the surprises.

_Fuck_ , Brendon was most definitely thinking too much at this point.

And then, before he knew what he was doing, he was thinking about the one thing he vowed that he never would, and he found himself wondering why, because why was he hiding in shame of everything that had built him and made him who he was?

And just like that, the silence was broken, and Brendon Urie was not just _thinking_ about the things that he vowed not to, but _talking_ about them too.

"You know my dad?"

Ryan's head snapped away from the window and to face Brendon within a matter of seconds, his eyes widened a little, slightly startled, and his lips parted a little as if he wanted to say something, but didn't quite know what.

Brendon continued nevertheless, "I never really told you much about my dad." He paused, meeting Ryan's gaze, before taking one quick glance out of the window, and indeed it was beautiful, and indeed it was insignificant, but that was indeed wonderful.

"You told me he killed himself." Ryan finally managed to speak up after a moment or two; the matter of Brendon's father making him even more nervous than it had made Brendon, perhaps.

"I know." Brendon let out a sigh: a little sigh, a quick little sigh that Ryan couldn't quite decipher and killed himself inside for. "I told you what he did, not who he was. That's like someone asking who Pete was, and Patrick just saying he shot himself, that's like someone asking who Dallon was, and me just saying he overdosed- they're both so, so much _more_ than that."

"I know, of course they are." Ryan paused for a moment, unsure as to what Brendon was exactly getting at here.

"My dad really liked trains, you know? When I was little, maybe five or six, and it was the weekend, and it was too rainy for mum to insist that we went out and did something stupidly pointless as a family, he'd take me to the train station, and I had this fucking bright yellow raincoat, and it was far too big for me, and I looked ridiculous, but it didn't matter, and we went to the train station and he used to take picture of the trains, and then when we saw one we liked, we'd get a ticket, and we'd just catch it, no matter where it was going and just go explore, because it didn't matter, my dad was clever, he always knew how to get us back safe. And wherever we went, we'd go explore and he'd take pictures of me and the sights, and the trains, and god, of course we didn't tell my mum - she'd go ballistic, I was like _six_ , and well, he put together this scrapbook of all the photos he took, but he never let alone see it, because he was always working on it, even when I was older, still working, just different pictures as things changed, and- and... he never got to finish that scrapbook."

"Oh... I'm sorry... Brendon... I..."

"And we looked through it when we found it a few months after he'd... he'd... and my mum saw the photos of me and him on the trains when I was little, and she didn't even care at all, even though she would have screamed at him, she was just so _happy_ , she just-... she- people change after people die, they act different, not just in regards to that person, but altogether... and I don't think about this and I don't talk about this and that's because he's.. he's... and I can't help but wonder where we'd all be today if my dad hadn't... hadn't... you know..."

They sat in silence for a few moments, before Ryan finally spoke up, "maybe I would have gotten to meet him." 

"He would have really liked you, and I _mean_ that, because people always say that, but I seriously mean it, Ryan, he would have _really_ liked you."

"How do you know?"

"I just do, Ryan, I know things, remember."

-

She had gotten herself stuck amidst one of the worst situations in the world, and Sarah Orzechowski knew it like she knew anything, because she did know things, remember?

Her head was somewhat distant: focused on anything but the three other girls sat on Kitty's bedroom floor with her. Lindsey and Kitty were working on putting something together musically, as Jamia lay into Lindsey's lap, frantically texting someone, most likely Frank, as Sarah sat somewhat distant and away from the three girls, her gaze focused off elsewhere as her phone screen lit up in her hands for the third time in a minute.

She didn't really have much of a desire to reply to the three messages from Brendon, much like the fact that she didn't really have much of a desire to admit that there was more that just a close friendship between the two of them, _again_ , and at least from her side, because of course, Brendon had Ryan, but she could swear that he looked at her like he shouldn't when he thought no one was watching.

And this couldn't happen again, not like it had been last time, and Sarah knew that- _fuck_ , the whole damn world knew that, but still Sarah didn't know it well enough, because her mind still wandered, and Brendon still mattered, and to Sarah Orzechowski, absolutely everyone mattered, and absolutely everyone mattered far too much.

And this was exactly the way she was going to ruin herself, and she _knew_ it, and she fucking _cherished_ it, because there was little else to do at this point, she was in too deep, far too fucking deep - fucking deep enough to start digging her own grave, but still she just sat there: complacent and not nearly as scared as she should be.

Because Sarah was just that: _too nice_.

_'I need to talk to you.'_

The first of Brendon's texts to her was pretty self explanatory and easy to ignore with a simple dimming of the screen, but when the second text appeared mere moments later, thing got a little more tricky.

_'It's important.'_

And Sarah's heart rate quickened, the 'fuck boy in need' alarm sounding off somewhere in her brain as her inner mother Theresa activated, because seriously there were two many fuckboys who Sarah gave more attention than they could ever possibly deserve, and that was her first mistake.

_'Very important, please_.'

And giving into Brendon's multitude of desperate text messages was her second mistake, and it was a mistake that came with unlocking her phone, and typing a quick and simple, and totally harmless and probably the best thing she could have said in that situation, _'why? What's wrong?'_ but of course, Brendon most certainly wasn't going to stop now.

And the worst part was that a part of Sarah didn't even want him to, because there was a fucking _huge_ part of Sarah that would let herself fall for him all over again, because that's what it was: over and over again every new conversation, and it was ridiculous and tedious but with no foreseeable end, because try as she might, Sarah just couldn't leave him alone: desperately clutching to all hopes that they could be just friends, but this was one of those fucked up situations where things could never quite be more than that.

_'I'm going soft._ '

And dear god, Sarah was just praying that Brendon wasn't talking about his dick there.

_'I don't know what it is, it's just weird. We need to talk in person.'_

And Brendon's explanation, typed only a few moments later did a good job of clearing the possible awkward dick situation up, well in the context, perhaps 'up' wasn't the best choice of words, but Sarah couldn't exactly contemplate the explanation, let alone her response, before Kitty was tapping her on the arm, and causing her to look up in alarm, her finger going to the power button of her phone within seconds.

"Come and get food from the kitchen with me, Sarah?" Kitty asked, leaving Sarah to glance at Jamia and Lindsey: Jamia had made her way into Lindsey's lap, and Sarah reckoned she'd be doing herself a favour by leaving as soon as possible, but of course, she didn't have a clue what was going through Kitty's mind and what she knew that Sarah reckoned she didn't.

They slammed the door behind them, Sarah following Kitty as she made her way down the stairs, not a word between them until they reached the kitchen and Kitty stopped dead in her tracks, facing Sarah with widened eyes.

"What?" She asked, blushing a little under Kitty's gaze, because fuck, she could be pretty intimidating when she wanted to be, and Sarah couldn't think for the life of her as to just how she'd fucked up.

"You're nowhere near as discreet as you think you are." Kitty let out a sigh, watching as Sarah leaned back against the door awkwardly. "What the fuck's going on with you and Brendon? I'm not letting you go through this shit again, you hear me?"

"It's nothing-"

"Sarah, fucking look me in the motherfucking eyes and tell me that Brendon Urie didn't fuck up your life, and tell me that he isn't continuing to do so, because he is, and I fucking _know_ , because I'm not stupid, and you're obvious, and it's going to be the same fucking love triangle situation all over again, and I'm not going to sit back and watch this time- I will not hesitate to kick the _shit_ out of that fuckboy, you hear me?"

"We're just friends." Sarah let out a sigh, avoiding kitty's gaze, because by now, she even knew that she was lying to herself here.

"Brendon Urie doesn't have friends: he has enemies and people he's fucking - that's it, fuck at the very least he doesn't discriminate when it comes to gender, but he's a fucking _asshole_ about everything else-"

"We're not fucking." Sarah promised Kitty, and perhaps this one she could mean, at least for the time being anyway.

"But you have _fucked_ , and you're not enemies, and friends is just a fucking code word, and it's _Brendon fucking Urie_ , come on, you don't need him in your life. He's got Ryan Ross to fuck over again now, and you don't need to let him fuck you over too: you're better than that."

"I'm nothing special." Sarah shrugged it off, blushing a little as she continued to slip by with making as little of a comment upon the situation with her and Brendon as possible.

"Fuck off, you're amazing, of course you're special, you're beautiful, Sarah, seriously, you can do so much better than Brendon fucking Urie, don't be stupid."

But when it came to being stupid, there was absolutely nothing that Sarah Orzechowski could possibly be better at.

-

"It's red?" Mikey widened his eyes a little, struggling to find much of an interest or even something to say about his brother's hair, other than the rather blatant, scarlet red nature of it.

The two were sat, cross legged on the half done patio in the back garden of their house, well, in all honestly, it was more of a shitty path next to the house than any kind of patio, but Bert was very insistent upon speaking well of his crudely constructed garden fixtures, and Gee hadn't had the motivation nor interest to question him.

"Well, _yeah_ , I did indeed for it to be like that." Gee shook his head, laughing a little as he held a cigarette almost _too_ loosely between his fingers. "But what do you _think_?" He continued, running his spare hand back through his hair and shaking the scarlet locks a little, because yes, in Gee Way's head, he did indeed like to pretend that he was America’s next top model and that life was his catwalk, and that Frank Iero was his amazingly hot boyfriend- _oh wait_...

"It's red-" Mikey repeated, staring at his brother with wide eyes, and well, it was safe to say that he wasn't really making all that much of an effort, but at the very least, he was actually responding, which was certainly good news at least.

"Just tell him that you like it and that it looks nice." Frank butted in, overlooking the two brother's conversation from the dining room. "He's an arrogant little sod." He continued in an oddly affectionate tone, closing the backdoor behind him, and taking a seat beside his boyfriend, leaving Mikey to let out a badly disguised sigh, because _fuck_ , he was not sticking around if they were going to start making out right in front of him.

"I am _not_!" Gee protested, blushing a little as he put his cigarette to his lips, exhaling a cloud of smoke as he watched Mikey raise his eyebrows in something like disbelief. "I just care an awful lot about how I look."

"Okay then, _vain_. Is that better?" Frank asked, highly suspecting that it wouldn't be, but he wasn't really that fussed about his boyfriend being a fussy little shit.

"Fuck off." Gee sighed out, groaning a little as he turned to Mikey, "seriously, tell me, does it look shit or not?"

"Why are you asking me?" Mikey asked, because well, he was hardly the expert on hair and beauty, and Gee was even pretty sure that his brother had had the same hairstyle for at least four years now.

"Because Frank's gonna give me that 'you always look beautiful, you're my boyfriend, I love you lots' crap, and I want an actual opinion, and yeah, I don't think Bert has even washed his hair in the last month." Gee paused, cracking something like a smile, "but don't tell him I said that, because you know, I'd rather _not_ be homeless, you know?"

"Your hair looks fine, Gee." Mikey said after a moment, driven more by pressure and influence than genuine opinion but it seemed to restore Gee's ego sufficiently, and of course, that was really the only thing that mattered here, because as well all know, Gee Way's hair is the goddamn most important thing in the world.

"You know, Frankie, I think you'd look really fucking hot with like bleach blonde-"

"Yeah, okay I'm out." Mikey announced, cutting his brother off as he got to his feet and walked past the two of them, making his way inside and safely behind a locked bedroom door, ready to slam his head into a wall non-stop for a good ten minutes or something.

Frank raised his eyebrows as the backdoor slammed behind Mikey, turning back to Gee to see nothing but ridiculous fucking laughter. "You scared your brother off, you little shit."

"Hmm..." Gee took another drag of his cigarette, "tell me why I should care when now I have time alone with you and your pretty little ass- I mean face... no I don't."

"You're literally the biggest the fucking idiot in the whole world." And Frank fucking meant it, but like in an 'I love you' way, because maybe Frank even outranked that title for willingly dating the biggest fucking idiot for so long, but of course, this was all a matter of debate and opinion.

"Yeah, whatever, but I'm hot as fuck." And well, Gee wasn't wrong, was he? "Now come on, tell me how hot I am with red hair, come on, maybe I'll give you a blowjob in return."

"And it'll be like when we first met, huh?" Frank raised his eyebrows, glancing between Gee and the garden, and smiling to himself like the fucking idiot he really was.

"Huh...?" Gee trailed off, making it evident that he'd forgotten, but of course, he was all kinds of crazy drunk that night many months ago, but that didn't change the fact that it was a night that mattered.

"That party when we first met, we went back out into the garden to be alone, and it was awkward and you called me homophobic at first, but then it wasn't like that, and we were like flirting and then there were blowjobs in this fucking backyard out in public, and dear god, that feels like forever ago." Frank sighed out, leaning his head back against the wall, watching as Gee remained silent for a moment, before smiling to himself as the memories returned to him.

"You were so cute and innocent back then." He added, leaning back against the wall, and half into Frank's side. "You were like a little baby, you're so different now, and it sounds stupid, like I'm some cringey aunt you barely know, but you've changed so much, and I'm proud of you, Frankie, and I love you a lot."

"And so you dated the 'little baby'?" Frank raised his eyebrows, only half offended.

"Like I wasn't an arrogant little baby then too. I think perhaps I still am, but I can take care of myself a little better now- well... I guess I just think I'll always have the mind of a teenager, you know what I mean? I can't imagine myself as an adult, being responsible, with a job, with a house, _god_ -"

"You are an adult, Gee." Frank reminded him, smirking a little.

"Not really. Bert's like my fucking _mum_ , come on - this is his house, I'm like the overgrown emo baby child who just won't leave."

"How does Bert even afford this house? I swear he never does anything either..."

"I don't want to know, so I don't ask, and I reckon that's the best way to get through life until I actually have to take responsibility for myself."

"You're such a great influence on me, Gee."

"Oh yeah, baby, I _know_."

-


	42. Warning: There's Some Plot For Once

The two teenagers walked in silence.

There was so much to be said, and so much between them, but they had both reached the silent decision that they were content in simply nothing more than silence.

They hadn't really had much in the way of a conversation nor any time together over the past few weeks, and perhaps this was what this really served, and not just an ambiguous text from Ryan Ross requesting that Frank came over, involving the words 'urgent', 'important', and now.

And then of course, Gee had gotten uptight and insisted that it would be 'dangerous' for Frank to go out on his own in the dark, and _everyone_ knew he was being ridiculous, but Gee was stubborn and most certainly wouldn't budge nor heed any form of explanation whatsoever.

And with that, Mikey had offered to go with Frank, after having walked into the kitchen for nothing more than a glass of water, because his lips were chapped and faded.

It was perhaps the whole situation with Mikey and his family that had kept him from having any kind of time with any of his friends lately, because getting disowned by your mother was indeed particularly stressful, even if you had a brother who cared about you enough to let you stay with him without question, because the situation of being rejected by the one person who was supposed to love you and care for you without question was not a situation _anyone_ wanted to be in.

Frank had been in Mikey's vicinity an awful lot, seeing as he practically lived with Gee, but the two had been just a little too distracted with one another for Frank to really uphold and kind of conversation with Mikey where he could look the taller boy in the eye.

Mrs Iero had been hesitant at first regarding the matter of her seventeen year old son spending practically every waking hour at his boyfriend's house, but she'd talked it over with a lovely woman called Janet from work, and lovely Janet, whom Mrs Iero often spoke heavenly praises of, had explained that Frank was almost an adult, and if he really loved his boyfriend then he'd want nothing more than to spend all the time he could with him.

Of course explanation did little to solve the weird motherly feelings in Linda Iero's heart, but lovely, amazing, heavenly Janet had offered to spend time with her to help her accept that her son was growing up, and through such practice, the two had developed somewhat of a tightly knit friendship: _gal pals_ , you could even say.

Frank had seen his mum and Janet together more times than he wanted to count particularly, and being a flaming homosexual himself, he did begin to develop the slightest sneaking suspicion that the nature of the interactions between lovely Janet and his mother were perhaps just a little less heterosexual than they 'should be', however, the subject of his mother's sexuality was not something Frank, or anybody, found themselves particularly comfortable discussing.

But in the silent, street light lit, late night walk across town, the subject reared its head.

"Mikey, this is going to sound weird, but I think my mum has a girlfriend."

The taller boy stopped in his tracks, turning to face Frank, and scrutinising his face for any signs of badly executed humour or the faintest remnants of a smirk, but there was nothing of that nature to be found, and forced Mikey to string together some sort of awkward and badly strewn response. " _What_?"

"I think my mum has a girlfriend." Frank repeated himself, being to walk again, at somewhat more of a slower pace than before, but one that Mikey still found himself a little too shell-shocked at to catch up with. "Janet, 'lovely, heavenly, amazing, wondrous, beautiful Janet', Janet from work, Janet who's a psychic on the weekends, and Janet who believes that somehow she's a dachshund in an alternate universe."

" _Oh?"_ Mikey raised his eyebrows, finding himself equipped with very little more than astonishment when it came to handling the situation, or even just _responding_ to Frank.

"When I'm at home: they're always together, and my mum dumped her this guy like a few weeks ago now, and she's not mentioned another man since, and well, they are quite close, and I don't mind, actually Janet seems really nice, you know, but... it's... weird, kind of... _unexpected_ , you know?"

And no, Mikey did not know, as his mother was somewhat of a polar opposite, and would probably attempt to exorcise herself if she as much as even glanced at another woman’s boobs. "Like you don't know what to say to her about it?"

"Yeah, even though, like she'll probably bring it up to me in her own time if it lasts, well, actually, it'll probably be Janet who brings it up, because you know Janet, well you don't know Janet- you've actually never even met Janet- would you like to meet Janet?"

Mikey blinked at Frank like he didn't quite recognise the boy beside him. "I... _uhh_?"

"Sorry- _fuck_ , I'm nervous... Ryan keeps insisting that it's important and like texting me asking me to hurry up every ten fucking seconds, and I feel like Brendon's died or something, and I just... if someone else dies I think I might just fucking punch them until they're fucking resurrected, because you know what, Mikey? I'm fucking _done_ with death, you know?"

"Frank, you know those pills that Bob left in the kitchen-"

"What pills? I didn't see any pills?" Frank was a fucking terrible liar.

"The ones you took." Mikey let out a sigh, shaking his head a little as he did so. "Bob's never going to notice, don't worry. Alicia might, but she'll probably blame me, you know, she fucking hates me."

"God, remember when you _dated_ her?" Frank exclaimed, his eyes widening in a slightly sadistic form of delight.

"Fuck, that was, that was- fuck, I was so _straight_ , and I- god, you and Gee, and I didn't even know, and Ray was just like- _fuck_... Ray... I..."

"You still haven't spoken to him?" Frank asked, adjusting his tone as Mikey let his gaze fall to the floor.

Mikey shook his head. "I'm scared, you know? And I'm sorry and I'm worried, and I've just made such a mess, and you know what- _fuck_ , Frank I don't tell people this, but you're still my best friend, you know, like I know that our friendship hasn't exactly been anything worth noting as of recent, but, I still consider you to be my best friend, okay?"

"Yeah, you're my best friend too, Mikey."

"I still miss Pete, and I'm so scared that I'm going to be like fifty and still alone, or fuck even _married_ , because still no one's going to compare to Pete, like I do genuinely think he was 'the _one_ '... you know what I mean?"

Frank nodded, letting out a small sigh. "If you were meant to be together, then you're not going to be apart-"

"So what are you suggesting that Pete's gonna get resurrected?"

Frank shrugged it off as the two neared Ryan's house. "I'm not suggesting anything."

-

Ryan Ross had died precisely twenty minutes ago.

Not literally, _of course_.

That'd just be ridiculous, and the amount of funerals would be getting kind of stupid, but anyway, there was a very good reason as to why he'd been so insistent upon Frank's swift arrival, and it was the kind of reason that ensured _Brendon Urie_ hadn't spoken a word for the exact same twenty minutes.

It was a text, nothing more, nothing less, but really, it was the whole damn world, because it was closure and re-exposure all at the same time; it was enough to fuck with your mind and settle it at the same time, and Ryan knew the message most definitely wasn't of such an intent, but the execution was rushed, and it was no one's fault.

Well, it was.

But certainly not Ryan's, nor Brendon's, nor the fault of the sender of the text message.

Ryan had been something like half asleep when he'd received it as well: curled up against Brendon's side, half watching some shitty ass rom-com that neither of them had even glanced at for a good ten minutes; it was Brendon's choice, and it served as a wonderful reminder to Ryan as to why he should absolutely never let Brendon pick what film to watch, but that was beyond significant in comparison to the events at hand.

Ryan had practically had a heart attack when he'd read it, the message that is, and not the description for the shitty rom-com on Netflix, although he kind of had too, but it wasn't nearly the same heart attack at all.

This had Ryan sitting up on the sofa, and shaking a little, and Brendon waking up instantly, and questions outweighing answers and a response to the message and _nothing_ , fucking _nothing_ , and Ryan just showed Brendon the message because he couldn't even fathom forming a single word at this point.

Joe was out of town this week: Joe _had_ to be out of town this week, _fuck_.

Ryan hadn't really spoken to Frank much as of recent, but before all of this mess, they'd had something like a good friendship, and Frank had texted back instantly, and Ryan's heart had slowed down to a normal rate for all of five minutes.

The notion of the message itself was perhaps not all that significant, but the _contents_ of the message and what it meant to Ryan as a person, as it became perhaps the one sentence that fucking changed everything.

' _I need to stay. I can't explain. I can. But not now. I've messed up, big time.'_

Of course, the message in its simplest form seemed not to warrant such a reaction in the two teenagers, but the message in its simplest form had neglected something very important: the contact name perhaps, the identity of the sender, because that was what changed _everything_.

And that was exactly what had had Ryan breathing heavily for something close to ten minutes now.

And of course that contact name was predictable, yet unexpected, and Brendon couldn't quite believe it, but had also seen it coming at least a thousand miles off.

_'Patrick_ '.

-

Frank pressed his index finger against the doorbell with copious amounts of force, and Mikey had perhaps even considered stepping back a little for fear that Frank may slap him or something. Ryan's latest text had been all the more insistent and had played on the shorter boy's anxieties, stretching him like an elastic band, and the doorbell and the pressure was nowhere near snapping point, not yet.

It was Brendon who had answered the door, and within mere seconds, and thankfully for the boy with the rather distinctive forehead, the situation was far too pressing for either of the boys to even consider questioning just what Brendon was doing at Ryan's house so late at night.

Ryan was curled up on the sofa when the two walked in; he was something close to crying, and it was doing very little to ease Frank's nerves, and well, Mikey felt as if he'd walked into what he thought would be a puddle, but had turned out to be the Mariana Trench.

" _Fuck_." Brendon let the word slip from his lips with little regard for eloquence nor explanation, and Ryan looked up, the two communicating in some sort of psychic not quite boyfriend eye contact language, as Ryan passed Brendon his cellphone, and Brendon held it out to Frank and Mikey.

"So he's... he's... coming back? _Here_?" Frank was the first to speak, and Ryan seemed to visibly startle when he did.

"I guess so." Brendon let out a sigh, his gaze fixated upon his milky not quite lover as he did so; his gaze one of pure heterosexual endearment, because this was absolutely _not_ a time for homo. "It's vague, but I guess so- I mean, I'm still not exactly sure as to how he left or what the fuck happened, and it doesn't help that Joe's out of town, because Joe's probably the one he spoke to about this."

"I know, I know." Ryan piped up from the corner, getting to his feet, and shaking a little as he did so. "It's a fucking mess, and he won't explain, and I'm just so worried for his safety, and I- _fuck_ , fuck, _fuck_ , fuck, _fuck_ -"

"He spoke to me before he left." And it soon became apparent that this was World War III, because Mikey Way had dropped the bombshell of the century.

And in that moment, Ryan Ross' living room became the set of 'The Office'.

"You what?" Ryan exclaimed, his eyes widening in disbelief. "You actually fucking what? Did you not think that maybe this key piece of information was at all helpful ever, nope, nope, _no?_ Or were you too busy up your own ass-"

" _Ryan_." Frank cut it, shooting the person in the world least likely to have a calcium deficiency a particularly brutal glance.

"It was weird, man, it was... _weird_... I... fuck, Frank, I swear you were there? You're always at Gee's, aren't you? But when Patrick wanted to talk to me, you remember?"

"Yeah, yeah..." Frank trailed off, the memories coming slowly back to him.

"Well, it was kind of a fucked up mess kind of thing and I didn't even know what to think so I didn't really mention it, but he was like... he kept like hallucinating or, well he... he thought he was seeing Pete's g-ghost... and he came to me because you know, we were both close to Pete, and I... I... wasn't exactly the most _understanding_ , but I... I don't even know what happened after that, I just-"

" _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_ -" Ryan shook his head firmly, grabbing onto Brendon's arm as all the blood appeared to drain from his face.

"Ryan, are you... are you.. _okay_?" Brendon practically had a heart attack as he turned to Ryan, attempting to grab his attention to get any kind of response from the boy. "Fuck, Ryan, you... you really _need_ to lie down, okay? I.. I, _fuck_ , I-"

The doorbell rang.

And it was funny, it was ridiculous, it was hilarious, how the most mundane and simple action had suddenly become the most important thing in the world to four scared teenagers.

And _again_ , in the frozen silence, the doorbell rang.

-

He knew he was right, and he knew what he was doing was wrong, so somewhere down the line those two had to balance out somewhere.

Of course, that wasn't how it really worked, but he was more than happy to try, and well, in reality, this was all he had left besides the pistol he kept under his pillow, because it wasn't getting this bad, and he'd been misjudged, and it wasn't like how they thought it was, because he was okay: he really was, and he _knew_ it.

And he wasn't scared, but oh god, he really was.

Because if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear was a whole load of bullshit, and he stood shaking as he threw his belongings into a backpack, pulling on two hoodies at the same time to consume space, as he grabbed his phone charger.

Because he wasn't coming back; he _couldn't_ come back, and he couldn't stay, dear god _no_.

And they'd track his phone, god they would, of course they would, so he turned it off after having sent the message, because the aftermath of one simple text message was now nothing but out of his control, and he revelled in that fact a little, free from the crushing weight of responsibility for barely a few seconds as he slipped his favourite pair of converse on and swung his backpack on, before climbing out his bedroom window and doing his best to make his way down the conveniently placed drainpipe without dying.

He managed it, _luckily_ , and hadn't any time to assess his descent or even look over his limbs for scrapes and scratches before he was darting down an alleyway: sprinting at first, then jogging, then after reaching the woods at the end of town, slowing to a fast walk, because they couldn't find him in here, they _wouldn't_ , they couldn't, and he was okay.

And he'd forgotten the pistol under his pillow.

They'd find it, of course they would, and that would make things a million times worse when he returned, of course, but he wouldn't return, and he couldn't go back for it now, and _he_ was telling him not to.

And the boy in the corner of his eye, stood between two trees perhaps five metres behind him had an awful habit of being right about things.

Perhaps even a habit of being right so strong that he couldn't possibly be anything but real, _somehow_ , because he knew things, remember, but not this much.

He walked until his feet grew sore, and his head began to spin, and he needed to stop, goddamn, every fucking cell in his body was screaming for him to stop, and not just due to his lack of physical health, but due to the nature of his situation and the circumstances, but the voice of the boy behind him kept him trudging on forwards.

Because the boy behind him was his best friend, and always would be, and some of that rubbish, and they'd disagreed, and he wouldn't have that - he fucking _wouldn't_ have that, and this was all he needed to do to be okay again: not pills, not therapy, and certainly not that damn hospital, fuck, he couldn't, _no_.

And she'd send him there, of course she would.

A promise meant nothing after all.

It was more to do with the boyfriend who worked in the corner shop that had been whispering lies and promises into his mother's ear than her own judgement though, but still, she'd condemned him to this fate, and he'd left the pistol under his pillow as a gesture perhaps, because she'd find it, he knew she would, but she wouldn't find him.

The skyline soon faded into familiar shapes and figures; the end of the forest he knew, near the canal and that back road, near Brendon's house even, and he knew Brendon's house, he did, he knew it well, and so did the boy behind him, who smiled as streetlights from the aforementioned back road flooded his vision, and dear god, he couldn't stop now.

He was so nearly there that he could fucking feel it, and he could feel alive, and this was alive: this was the option and he'd been told, and the boy behind him was never wrong, and the boy never went away anymore, and he didn't even care.

He _needed_ his best friend.

"Hey." The boy moved to match his pace, stood a while away from him still, but enough to catch his attention. "We're nearly there."

"Yeah." He spoke aloud in response. "We are."

"It's going to be okay, you know?" He smiled, because his best friend was the absolute _best_ best friend in the whole damn world, and the fact that he was dead didn't count for anything.

"Yeah-"

"No, seriously, _Patrick_ , it is."

"I know, _Pete_ , I know."

And the two walked in silence: a distanced silence, a distanced walk, a distanced friendship, but the silence was still real, so was the walk, and indeed so was the friendship, despite what anyone else said, and perhaps, like that, Patrick could keep sane, or at least as sane as possible, and that was what mattered after all, wasn’t it?"

Quite honestly, Patrick just didn't know, and perhaps that was okay; he had no concept of okay anymore, he just had words and lies and falsely spun memories and hospital walls and therapists that spoke for too long and problems that wouldn't go away.

Pete was the last good thing he had left.

And Patrick was going to cling to him for dear life.

Because that's what they wanted, wasn't it? To make Pete go away; that was what all of them wanted, and Patrick wouldn't stand for it, and Patrick could barely stand, his legs aching as he stumbled under streetlights, but he was nearly there now; he knew this town better than his 'own' anyway.

But then again, this was really his town, because this was the town he'd been born in, and this was the town Pete had died in; it tied them down, and it tied them together, and Patrick's legs were about to give out entirely, but Ryan's house was barely twenty metres away now, and he could make that, fuck, he could, of course he could; he _had_ to.

"You're so nearly there, you're so nearly safe, come on, _come on_!" Pete exclaimed, forcing Patrick to stumble faster down the road, until he found himself practically falling against a front door, perhaps his _favourite_ front door in the world, because with a ring of the doorbell, he was safe, he was okay, _finally_.

Pete smiled at him, and the porch light shined through him in a way that made him look just a little more real.

Patrick smiled back, before he lost his grip on consciousness entirely and fell down against Ryan Ross' front porch step.

-

It started in a forest that he didn't recognise, and it started with a car, vintage in make, by the side of a twisted road in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere.

Patrick woke up on the side of the road like road kill himself, trees tall and slender in nature, with darkened leaves creating somewhat of a canopy above his head; the cage walls of the forest, perhaps.

It was this every night; this was the _dream_ , this was the dream that plagued Patrick Stump's mind every night, and had done for near enough two weeks.

Of course, he knew it well by this point, but the dream always had a little surprise for him in the end, because despite being little more than a concoction of his own mind, the dream always seemed to be one step ahead.

The forest he woke up in was _anything_ but familiar; occupied with deep purples, blacks, and greens, as opposed the golden hues of autumn leaves in the forest Patrick was most accustomed to.

This place was unwelcoming, and it wanted Patrick to know that.

But still, he stumbled to his feet, and finding the forest at the side of the road the black car had been parked upon fenced off with what appeared to be barbwire, he found himself condemned to the side he'd woken up on, stumbling down somewhat of a slope and down through the trees until the path faded away, and the trees curled in around him like greedy hands.

He didn't know why he walked, and why he walked every time, but he did, his feet almost seeming to lead the way more than he did, as he hurried on past trees until his surroundings were rendered little more than unrecognisable and the road and the car seemed like little more than a distant memory.

Soon after, time had passed in a great enough quantity for Patrick to reach the hill, and the path came back into view to guide him in his ascent; trees and a darkened dusk skyline continuing to tower over him as he struggled to make it to the top, but of course finding himself in no lack of climax when he did.

The summit was more or less flat, and beside one ancient tree, complete with gnarled roots and decaying leaves, lay a sheet of black plastic, and curiosity seemed to drive Patrick's feet every time as he stumbled towards it, eager to uncover the plastic as if he hadn't seen it time and time again, every single night.

Beneath the plastic was a body, a _dead_ body: rotten and mutilated in such a manner that would lead to evidence stab wounds, and _murder_ , and before Patrick could stare for too long, the world around him was flickering and the knife was in his hands, and the blood on his jeans.

His heart thudded in his chest as he threw the knife down against the body, which turned a little with the impact, and only then did Patrick catch a glimpse of the _face_.

It was a different face every night, but it meant so much all the same, because there had never once been a night when the face wasn't of a person who meant everything to the shaking, stumbling boy, who threw the plastic back over them with haste and the slip of a curse word, before he was running and stumbling back down the hill and through the forest: whispers strewn by ancient trees calling out after him as he ran back to the road and what little escape he could conjure up.

But he _always_ made it back to the road.

And _he_ was always waiting: leaned up against the car, still parked in the same place as before.

He met Patrick's gaze like he knew everything, and stepped forward, ushering Patrick towards the car, and as Patrick neared the boy, he came to recognise that _face_ : Pete.

This face didn't change; this face had never, and would _never_ change, and Patrick knew that like he knew this dream felt just a little too real.

Pete always told him that they had to get out of here, and Patrick nodded, remaining silent as he got into the car and sat in the passenger seat; Pete always drove, and they always drove _too_ fast, speeding down the tight, twisting road until the forest faded away around them, and the sky grew darker under the grasps of night time.

And the two rode in silence, stopping after an unmeasureable amount of time had passed at what appeared to be a gas station at the road side.

Pete stopped the car, glancing one and only once at Patrick, before getting out, and leave Patrick to his own initiative to do the same. He followed Pete into the gas station, the place lighting up with cheap, flickering strip lights as they walked, until everything fell into darkness as he finally stepped inside the gas station door.

And Patrick stood there in silence for what was sometime seconds, but sometimes felt like hours, until Pete found the light switch on the opposite wall, and the gas station was illuminated, but really, Patrick wished that it had remained in that darkness forever.

The floor was littered with pools of blood; glass bottles smashed everywhere, and the whole store destroyed, however Pete didn't ever seem the slightest bit fazed by this, and after a moment of extended silence, he stepped across the floor, approaching Patrick, as the corners of his lips twitched up into a smirk.

Patrick's eyes fell into his, his heart hammering in his chest as the look in Pete's eyes became something worth fearing.

"Kill me." Pete would always say, reaching into his jacket pocket and retrieving the knife that Patrick was certain he'd left with the body up on that hill.

"No-" Patrick would always refuse, perhaps stepping away from Pete a little, but he was always insistent, holding out the knife to Patrick with a welcoming smile.

"Kill me." He'd repeat, as Patrick fell into a stunned silence.

And as Patrick stood in a prolonged silence, the world around them began to fade away, usually resulting in Pete disappearing completely, or killing himself with the knife in his hand, but never Patrick, however this time, Pete disappeared, and in his place fell another.

In Pete's place stood Ryan; his face startled in much the same way that Patrick's was, his eyes darting around the room with true fear and panic. "Fuck, _Patrick_ , you've got to wake up..."

Patrick attempted to open his mouth to concoct a reply, however it was like he just _couldn't._

"You're... please stop shaking, please start breathing, wake up, _please_ -"

And then, all of a sudden, Patrick felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck and his whole world flooded with a bright white light.

A bright white light that soon came into focus and revealed it to be the light of Ryan Ross' living room.

-

"Are you okay?" Brendon exclaimed, his eyes widening with a sort of concern that Patrick had never seen in the boy before.

Patrick didn't answer, but he most certainly wasn't.

He was lost, and so scared: physically in Ryan Ross' living room, but every time he blinked, every time he closed his eyes, he was back in that gas station, back in that forest, back on that road, in that car, with Pete.

"Fuck, please just say _something_ , Patrick." Ryan added, all pleading, and genuine eyes; the two boys sat beside Patrick on the sofa, with Frank and Mikey sat just a couple of metres away, silent, but just as on edge.

Because Frank hadn't expected this at all, and he hadn't been ready for this at all, and he wanted to turn around and go back home, home to _Gee_ , but he couldn't, because he knew that Ryan and Patrick needed him there right now, and he _would_ be there for him.

"I... I... I..." And then it hit him, "where's _Pete_?" He exclaimed, glancing around the room frantically for any hint of the boy he knew had most definitely fucked the world over for him, but finding himself alone, besides the four other boys.

"What do you mean where's Pete?" Frank exclaimed from across the room, his eyes widening in concern for Patrick, who was in perhaps the worst state he'd ever seen anyone in ever.

Patrick didn't answer, only closed his eyes, and Pete was there; of _course_ , he was there, but he opened them again, and _nothing_ , and fuck, it had _never_ been like this.

"He's... I can't... I can't see him... he was there..." Patrick gestured back towards the front door, "he was outside with me, we walked here together, but... he's not... he's not here anymore, and this isn't right; he doesn't leave me alone, not ever, but I see him when I close my eyes, and I-"

"Patrick, you do know that the Pete you're seeing isn't real, right?" Brendon interrupted him, unable to listen to this anymore, because fuck Ryan and the glare he gave him for it, he just _couldn't_ listen to Patrick driving himself insane like this.

Patrick nodded slowly, like he was trying and failing to convince himself. "Yeah... I... just..."

"Brendon, leave him alone, hallucinations can seem pretty real." Ryan was always first to protect Patrick's every word, and Brendon had kind of forgotten about that, and fuck, he hated this all over again, and with reluctance he made his way over to sit beside Mikey and Frank.

"When did you two get back together?" He asked Ryan, gesturing towards the now somewhat sullen Brendon. 

"We... we didn't, we're not..." Ryan blushed, the words tumbling from his lips in something like badly executed conviction.

"Oh..." Patrick paused, his gaze hitting the floor.

"Why are you back? Hey where did you even go?" Mikey was the one to break the silence, and that caught the whole room by surprise; no one having expected to hear much from him, but he'd made quite a point in proving them wrong.

"I... I... we moved town, it's this town... I thought it was this town... I don't know... but that was when I thought that this thing with Pete was something I could get better from, but it's not... it's part of me, and he's my best friend, and I couldn't get rid of him... not ever, and I... they wanted to put me in hospital, they wanted to get rid of him, and I... I couldn't _no_ , I need to stay here, I _can't_ go back."

"Why can't you see him now?" Mikey continued, raising his eyebrows a little.

"I don't _know_!" Patrick exclaimed, his body trembling a little as he did so.

"Fuck, Patrick... I... you can stay, of course you can, you're my best friend, but, but you need to... you can't just... you're _sick_ , Patrick, and you _need_ to get better-"

"No, _he's_ \- he must be outside, he... I need..." Patrick stumbled up from the sofa, making his way to the front door, before anyone could stop him.

" _Fuck."_ Brendon cursed aloud, getting to his feet, the others following him as he made his way after Patrick, who fumbled with the lock, and swinging the door open with such vigour that the bang it made as it collided with the wall resonated throughout the house.

The four gathered behind Patrick, whose face lit up into a smile as it fell upon the gaze of the boy sat on the front porch step, getting to his feet to meet Patrick.

"He's... yeah... he's... _here_."

"No, Patrick, he's _not_ , I'm sorry, but no one else can see him, I-" Ryan cut himself off, shaking his head, finding it too hard to watch as Patrick smiled in the darkness and nothingness, and he really began to wonder if this was the same Patrick who'd left this town, and whether the Patrick beside his side would ever be the same again.

But then, in the silence, a voice: hesitant and quaking from behind the group - Mikey Way, and five simple words that changed the whole fucking world. "I can see him too."

-


	43. It's Just Milk

"You can?"

Because not even Patrick was expecting that, and of course, Mikey had expected it perhaps even less, and from where Mikey was standing, the boy on the porch steps seemed a little astounded too, but that could very easily be just his imagination, or a trick of the light, as the boy on the porch steps might be in his entirety.

" _Fuck..."_ Brendon looked between Patrick and Mikey with a wide kind of genuinely scared look in his eyes. "Mikey, are you... are you being _serious_ right now, like how... how can you?"

Mikey blinked furiously, even rubbing his eyes a little, but the figure remained firmly on the same spot, looking just as real, and just as alive.

"I don't know." Mikey's gaze fell to the floor, well, _anywhere_ but Pete really, because it was starting to give him a headache, like fuck, he really couldn't deal with this, but as he turned back, and the figure remained, he came to the rather unforgiving realisation that he had little choice regarding the matter.

"I don't know either..." Pete spoke up; unheard by Brendon, Ryan, and Frank, but from the look on Patrick's face, he most _definitely_ heard him. "I thought it was only Patrick; I thought it was only ever going to be Patrick-"

"Mikey, are you... can you hear the same thing as me?" Patrick asked, ignoring the three boys, and even the not quite so alive one for favour of the skinny boy, who literally could _not_ stop shaking. "Pete, say something, just something, anything okay?"

Pete raised his eyebrows, glancing between Mikey and Patrick, before letting a few words slip between his lips, "nice ass, Mikeyway."

And from the look in Patrick's eyes, Mikey reckoned he'd heard the same thing as he had. 

"I kind of don't want to repeat that aloud..." Patrick mumbled, his cheeks flushing a shade of scarlet red.

"He said, 'nice ass, Mikeyway'." Mikey inhaled sharply, shuddering a little as he did, because this was all kinds of fucked up.

" _Yeah_...  he did... I..." Patrick swallowed hard, turning back to Mikey with wide eyes, as the two shared an odd kind of look that made Mikey almost wish that he'd just stayed at Gee's, and that Frank had stayed to, and that they just never made it here and never saw Patrick, and in turn, Pete, again.

"How the _fuck_ does that work?" Brendon couldn't quite wrap his head around the situation at hand, and well, neither Mikey nor Patrick blamed him, however the boy on the porch step, did seem to smirk in his direction.

"I... I... don't know... I..." Mikey shook his head, looking like he was close to tears, before turning to Frank, who had said nothing so far, only staring between the two boys with widened eyes, and a state of disbelief that had never faltered in the slightest. "F-frank... can we... can we go home?"

Frank almost seem to jerk back to life, turning to Ryan and Brendon, and exhaling with a sigh, "yeah, Mikey, of course we can... it's late, anyway."

"Yeah, look... Mikey, don't just leave this, will you?" Ryan added, his tone awfully quiet, and kind of shaky, like this whole situation had affected him much more than anyone could even fathom comprehending. "Like, text or call or something in the morning, _please_?"

Mikey nodded, biting his lip as he did so, turning away to follow Frank back down the road, when a certain boy moved from his spot on the porch step.

"Don't go with him, _don't_." Patrick's words caught them all by surprise, and with a moment's thought, they came to conclude that he was indeed speaking to the boy they couldn't see. "He's scared, and I don't understand this either, Pete, but... stay with me, okay? I'm used to you, I'm used to this."

"Okay." Pete muttered, turning away from Mikey and standing still on the spot there.

"So... so... he's staying here with us?" Ryan asked, turning to Patrick, and the empty spot beside him, assuming that Pete would be stood there.

"Ryan, what does it _matter_? It's not like he's _real_ -" Brendon began, only to be cut off as Ryan fucking _kicked_ him. "What and you think he _is?_ How could that even work?"

"I don't know _what_ to think, Brendon, but I know for sure that by saying things like that, you're going to upset Patrick and Mikey, and... maybe... Pete... if he can hear you..."

"I can." Pete added, not that Ryan could hear him. "Patrick, tell him I can, and tell Brendon that he's got a big, ugly fucking forehead."

And at that, Mikey couldn't help but grin, gesturing for Frank to follow him as the two made an exit.

"He can." Patrick added, considering omitting the latter part, but with the way that Brendon looked at him: all raised eyebrows and skepticality. "And he also wants me to tell you," he turned to Brendon, "that you've got 'a big, ugly fucking forehead."

"Oh _fuck off_." Brendon rolled his eyes, making his way inside and throwing himself onto the sofa in the living room: unsure as to what the hell he could make of this situation, because this had to be more than hallucinations at this point, if it was real? And Brendon couldn't handle the alternative; he couldn't handle the paranormal, and he couldn't handle the possibility of this relating to Dallon and his father at all.

But Brendon didn't tell anyone this, because he'd much rather everyone think of him as an inconsiderate asshole than the boy who still shook a little when he remembered his dad and the gun and what he did with it.

And perhaps even Brendon was jealous, because he missed them too. Sure enough, he didn't want to lose his sanity over it, but loss and grief were two inescapable hurdles that Brendon couldn't quite ever see himself getting over.

Instead, he curled up tight in the blanket, listening as Ryan and Patrick, and perhaps Pete, made their way inside, and Ryan muttered on about the spare bedroom, and Patrick assured him that everything was fine at least seven hundred times.

And Brendon couldn't hear Pete, but he reckoned that if he was really there, he'd most definitely said a million other things about his forehead by now.

Brendon couldn't help but be insecure about his forehead, like surely, it wasn't that big, was it? He even considered getting up to examine his forehead in the mirror, but they were pretty drastic measures, and well, Brendon reckoned himself to be the sane one here after all.

-

Mikey had locked the bedroom door behind him; he just wanted privacy, that was all, and he could hear Frank trying to calm Gee down from outside, but it didn't sound as if it was working all that much.

Sure, Gee _was_ his brother, and therefore probably would be worried about him, but Mikey was fine, or at least, that was all Gee needed to know, and Gee most definitely needed to see any visual proof of that.

The commotion outside his room soon died down, as Frank whispered something along the lines of, "shut up, I love you, I'm not lying to you," and Gee seemed to quiet down instantly, and then silence faded into footsteps that gradually faded into silence once more.

And Mikey met his reflection in the world's shittiest mirror and tried to tell himself that he was indeed fine, but he just couldn't quite manage it, and the unsettled feeling in his stomach was the reason why.

Because whatever this was with Pete was fucked up, and he knew that, and he couldn't have mistaken Pete; he knew that too, and really, the only thing Mikey could really put hope and faith into at this point was the slim, yet just maybe possible, possibility of this all being nothing more than a dream and that, maybe he'd just go to sleep tonight and wake up, god knows when and god knows where, but in a different place, fuck, perhaps he could even wake up on that stupid fucking day that he'd convinced himself to practice croquet to impress _Alicia fucking Simmons_ , and possibly just tell himself what a fucking idiot he was being.

Reality soon struck him with the realisation that was nearing a year ago, and Mikey just shook his head in disbelief at all that had changed in the past week, because really, half of the things he regarded as normal didn't feel real at all, and _Pete_ , or whatever it was that he and Patrick were seeing was most definitely number one on that list.

_Fuck_ , just why the fuck did Pete have to die? Why the _fuck_ did he have to be so fucking _drastic_? Fuck, he could have just _talked_ to someone-

But he didn't.

And Mikey couldn't help but wonder why.

Mikey could ask him; Mikey knew he could, but Mikey had no plans of doing so, and even less plans of going within Patrick, and in turn, Pete's, vicinity, because like that, perhaps he could just _forget_ about and ignore all of this.

And, as heartless as it sounded, if Patrick moved back home, then it wasn't likely that Mikey would ever come into contact with him again, and then it was simply a matter of drinking the memories out of his head, and fuck yeah, Mikey could totally do that.

But there wasn't a chance in hell that Ryan would ever let Patrick leave his sights, and Mikey knew that, and Mikey also knew that he could totally just lock himself up inside here for the rest of eternity, like _totally_.

His thought process was soon interrupted by the tapping of knuckles against wood: a knock, and a mediocre one at that. "Mikey?"

"B-Bert?" He called out, keeping his voice relatively quiet to avoid attracting Gee's attention, because although he was his brother, Gee was most definitely the one person he could _not_ face like this, and it didn't matter really, because he didn't at all doubt that Frank wouldn't fill him in sufficiently.

"Can I come in?" Bert paused for a moment, exhaling in an audible manner, which spiked confusion in the younger man. "I want to talk to you, and you probably don't want to talk to me, but... I want to listen, and I don't want to leave you alone in here. Bill's asleep, and I don't want to wake him either... it's been a weird day today, he-"

Mikey unlocked the door, meeting an expression of surprise on Bert's face as he did; the man making it evident he hadn't actually expected Mikey to actually open the door at all. "Come in." And Bert needed no further persuasion, as Mikey locked the door behind them once more.

"Tell me what happened at Ryan's." Bert went for the blunt approach, sitting down on Mikey's bed; the room was relatively small and the floor didn't look particularly appealing.

"You wouldn't _believe_ me: in fact, I hardly think Frank does." Mikey shook his head, taking a seat besides Bert.

"Try me." Bert pulled his lips into a grin, and Mikey shook his head, because fuck it, he was fucked, and quite honestly, there was so fucking little he could do to make it at all worse. "I'm quite open to things, you know? Usually things I'm quite open to involve dicks, but, ideas too... you Way brothers are idea specialists, you know?"

"Well..." Mikey pulled his gaze away from the man beside him, focusing his sights upon the small window in the corner, and the world's worst view of the shitty house next door outside of it. "You know, Pete, my ex-boyfriend, who... w-who... k-ki- he's... _dead_... I... and there's Patrick, and he moved recently but he came back and Patrick... well... Patrick started seeing Pete... like hallucinating- _fuck_ , I don't even know anymore... I... just... and this time, I saw Pete too. I _saw_ him, and no one else could, but me and Patrick could hear him saying the exact same things, and I-"

"You took those pills before you left, didn't you? I noticed, but I wasn't going to point it out to Gee, because I like you, Mikey-"

" _Frank_ , took the pills." Mikey corrected him, and just like that, every ounce of sanity or collection seemed to drain from Bert's face. "Frank told me that, and... I don't really take pills or do anything like that..."

"You're a good kid." Bert said after a moment, running a hand through Mikey's hair. "Sorry." He apologised instantly, "that was weird; Gee would shoot me if he saw me do that."

"It's fine." Mikey shrugged it off, because in this state, he didn't care who, he just needed _someone_ to make it hurt a little less in his chest.

And then silence for a good few minutes, until Bert came up with something that Bob Bryar would call a genius idea, "this sounds stupid, but have you tried googling this?"

Mikey laughed it off at first, "googling what? Seeing my dead ex-boyfriend, and yeah his best friend is too."

"I don't know, keep trying until something comes up, look, I'm not a self care book and I'm not going to pretend to be; I'm just someone who cares."

"Bert McCracken _caring_? What's next? Bob Bryar announcing that he's straight edge?"

Bert shook his head, smiling a little, "shut up," he added, grabbing Mikey's laptop from the floor, ready to put his elite googling skills into action.

-

William Beckett had told himself that he was okay.

Well, to be accurate here, William Beckett had lied to himself.

Because he was just about anything _but_ okay, and deep down, perhaps even on the surface he knew that, but of course, that knowledge ran simultaneously with the fact that he knew that he could never quite admit it to himself, because he'd fucked up here to some degree.

But he couldn't go back and he couldn't apologise, and Bert's house was nice, and Bert was nice, and although Bill had found himself likening it to a motel on more than one occasion, he did kind of like the company, and Gee, who genuinely lived here permanently, was far too nice to him, and well, Bill had decided it simply best not to question it.

He hadn't seen much of Bert for a few hours though, and it wasn’t like the guy was his mum or something, so it was nothing, and William wasn't stupid enough to make a fuss out of it, but his head kind of hurt, and he needed a glass of water and he needed to ignore the text from Gabe that he'd received forty four minutes ago now.

It was like a game: a challenge of sorts, just how long could he ignore it? Just how long could he ignore Gabe? Just how much could he fuck his life up? Hardly in comparison to the mess he'd already made of it; he knew that, but he was adamant and looking for every excuse to hide himself away here forever, and keep lying to his reflection in the mirror everyday.

He probably couldn't live like that, but regardless of whether he could or not, he reckoned he was most definitely going to.

He turned his phone off, throwing it down on the bed, before making his way into the hallway, and stumbling through the darkness into the kitchen, in search of a glass of water, or perhaps something stronger, to find Gee Way sat at the table, his gaze vacant, and his expression barely readable.

"Hey..." Bill trailed off, catching his attention, and causing him to jump a little. "I just came for water, it's fine," he added moments later, watching as Gee held his cigarette between two fingertips and seemed to make somewhat of a conscious effort in staring Bill down as he got himself a glass of water.

"Go back to your boyfriend, William." Gee's tone wasn't patronising, but it was damn well blunt enough to have Bill Beckett dropping the glass right onto the kitchen floor, and creating one hell of a mess.

" _Fuck_ -"

"Forget the glass, just come sit down." Gee gestured to the seat opposite him, and the stern sincerity in his tone left Bill with what he felt like was no chance to decline.

"Sorry..." He stuttered out, avoiding Gee's gaze, because never before had William Beckett reckoned that a dude in a miniskirt could be so terrifying, but Gee Way was indeed whole new levels of fearsome.

"You fucked up, okay? Gabe fucked up, okay? You had a fuck to make you feel better, okay? But you don't live here, Bill, you live with Gabe, and you need to go back; this isn't me being catty, this is me being the only person with some common sense around here, it seems."

"Bert's nice to me." William protested, his cheeks burning up a little.

"Bert's twenty seven, and you're eighteen - that's nine years, and you barely even know the guy, and what? Gabe's eighteen too, and he goes to school with you, and you have mutual friends, and you really know him and who he hangs around with? I know who makes more sense to me."

"Then why are you dating Frank?" And Bill wasn't entirely sure where this kind of sudden confidence and the desire to get himself killed had come from, but he knew for sure that Gee wasn't going to like it, yet simultaneously, that he had a point. "He's seventeen, you're twenty five."

"Because I'm selfish, and I love him, and I can't tell this him myself, but if he meets a guy his age who he likes, who he loves, even, I know that he should be with him over me, but, Frank... _Frank_... it sounds obnoxious, but I feel like he isn't going to, and I feel like he loves me as much as I love him, and I feel like maybe I'm more than the guy who's eight years older than him who wears skirts all the time." Gee paused for a moment, "his mum knows that too; his mum likes me, that's what lets me know this is real."

"My mum doesn't even like me, let alone some guy I could date-"

"Well, your best friends then? What do you think they'd say about Bert? What do they say about Gabe?" Gee asked, and Bill shook his head, cursing a little.

"I haven't spoken to Travie in weeks; he doesn't even know about Bert... I don't think he'd want to know..." Bill shook his head, not wanting to agree with the late night advice of a guy he barely knew.

"Speak to Travie then, because why would you want to hear this from me? Hear it from him, hear it from someone who matters, okay- look, go back to Gabe, _please_... can't you stay with Travie, even?"

William shrugged, blushing a little. "I'll call him in the morning... tell Bert I'm sorry..."

Gee nodded, catching Bill's gaze, and speaking before he could stop himself, "what would you do if you had this secret that could fuck everything up, but you can't bear to keep it inside anymore?"

"What kind of secret?" Bill asked, raising his eyebrows a little.

"I did something that Frank doesn't know about, something that he doesn't want me to do, and I kind of lied to him... not _out rightly_ , but he thinks I haven't done this thing, but when he finds out, I reckon we're fucked, but lying to him about it surely makes it worse? And I feel guilty, and I just... Mikey won't even talk to me right now, and I'm a bit of a mess, it's nothing-"

"Do you think he'll forgive you? Do you think the secret will get out unless you tell him?"

"I doubt it." Gee paused, shaking his head a little, "it won't if I keep on Bert's good side."

"He knows?"

"It involves him, to say the least, and... it's Bert, so he's going to find the perfect opportunity to blackmail me with it, and maybe it's just better if I just tell Frank before he can do that, but I can't, and I..."

And footsteps in the doorway, "tell me what?"

-

Gabe and Sarah had become something like friends, and the situation was just about as expected as it sounded, but then again, Sarah did have this awful habit of being nice to the whole damn world, and therefore, realistically, she had little but herself to blame, but that Gabe Saporta was the worst person in the world, of course, but he sure as hell drank a lot of milk.

And with the amount of time he was wasting away at Sarah's house, she'd begun to take more notice of that than she would have ever liked to.

And sure, a friendship between them was all good and fine, even if Gabe did drink all of her milk, and Sarah stared awkwardly at him for extended intervals from time to time, but it wasn't at all like that in Kitty's eyes, and as Kitty sat at the breakfast bar, all glares and permanently raised eyebrows, Gabe couldn't help but feel rather self-conscious about the amount of milk he was drinking, which was of course something like a world class tragedy.

Sarah had sat beside Kitty, remaining in an awkward silence, as she continued to ask herself if Kitty would ever perhaps explain anything she did to her, because Kitty had most definitely been acting irrational lately, perhaps even more irrational than usual, which was definitely something considering the shit she'd done in the past.

"It's just milk." Gabe was the first to break the silence, causing Sarah to jump a little, as he put the now empty carton of milk back in the fridge, because yes, you definitely needed to keep a box of air cool. "Stop staring at me, it's weird." He added a few moments later, and Kitty made no secret of rolling her eyes as Gabe began to sip his milk.

"I don't like you, Gabe, get over it." And not only was Kitty irrational, but apparently rather blunt too.

"Kitty-" Sarah protested, almost in shock, because this definitely went against her being super, super nice to everyone policies, not that Kitty had ever cared for them at all.

"I don't like you too, either, seeing as you're doing little but going out of your way to make me uncomfortable and awkward, like, this isn't your house, this is _Sarah's_ house, and she wants me here just as much as she wants you here, so don't get all catty about things, okay?" And with that, Gabe took a hearty swig of the calcium enriched white substance held in the cup he clutched in his left hand.

"My name's Kitty, it's practically my responsibility to get catty." She shook her head, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips, because something about this was just far too amusing, because Gabe Saporta reckoned he had a chance. "I'm just protecting my best friend, you know, so you can fuck off with your assumptions."

" _Protecting_?" Sarah exclaimed, glancing between Kitty and Gabe with widened eyes, because she reckoned that there was definitely something she was missing here.

"He's an asshole, Sarah, and you always fall for asshole guys, and I will _not_ fucking ship this bullshit, like seriously, I'd say he's worse than Brendon, and Brendon's like the fuckboy supreme, so this guy-"

"I... I'm _gay._ " Gabe shook his head with a sigh, "I'm not hitting on Sarah, I'm her friend in much the same way that you are, and I'm really not over my ex-boyfriend, and even if I was into girls, I reckon I wouldn't be sat in their kitchens, drinking milk to try and earn their affections." And Gabe finished his cup of milk for that, because he fucking slayed, and he fucking deserved that milk.

"You're hardly her friend in the same way I am- you don't fucking _know_ -" And Kitty was right in all kinds of ways that neither Sarah nor Gabe could ever imagine, because if there was anyone hitting on Sarah by sitting in her kitchen with some milk, it was most definitely Kitty.

"Can we stop making this into some bitchy competition?" Sarah shook her head in disbelief, "you're both my friends and that's equal, and final okay-" And Sarah was cut off as Gabe's phone started buzzing away on the kitchen countertop.

He reached for it, not even glancing at the contact name as he put it to his ear and pressed the 'accept call' button, however, he really hadn't prepared himself for the heart attack he'd get by doing so at all.

"Gabe- I-"

" _Bill_?" Because Gabe hadn't heard a single thing from William Beckett in far too long, and perhaps Sarah was just as shocked as he was, getting to her feet and moving a little closer to Gabe in response.

"Yeah, _fuck_... I'm sorry, I've really made a mess of myself and everything, and can we- can we just... like met up and talk in person or something?" And Bill was hopeful, perhaps even too hopeful, but _fuck_ it, because he had little else left, and a boy in a skirt that had woken him up far too early in the morning to ensure that he did indeed make this phone call.

"Sure, yeah, that's great, like-" Gabe stuttered words out like a broken record or a windup toy of some sorts, because his heart was speaking for him right now, his head yet to process the mess he'd fallen straight, or perhaps, _gay_ , into.

"Can you do today? Like at the park, in like fifteen minutes or are you not even out of bed yet, because I barely am?" And Bill laughed a little, and Gee Way was totally fucking _scowling_ at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I can... I'm at Sarah's so, I'm good." He explained, catching Kitty's gaze in the corner of his eye, and regretting it instantly, but _fuck_ , when compared to the fact that William Beckett had finally gotten over himself enough to speak to him again, the girl with the bitchy glare in Sarah Orzechowski's kitchen meant absolutely nothing.

"Okay, see you in like fifteen minutes, Gabe." And with that, silence, and Gabe's hand shaking as his head struggled to process just what the _fuck_ kind of miracle God had just granted him.

"What did he _say_?" Sarah exclaimed, all wide eyes and enormous grin, and really, Kitty couldn't help but be jealous of being able to make Sarah smile like that, and fuck, she wasn’t even being discreet about it anymore, because fuck, it wasn't like lesbians were real anyway, so like, they were gal pals, totally.

"I'm meeting him in like... like _now_."

"So does that mean you'll finally have someone else's milk to drink?"

"Perhaps." And the biggest smile Sarah Orzechowski reckoned she'd ever seen.

-

Ray Toro still existed, and despite popular belief, everyone's favourite curly haired little _ray_ of sunshine was still out there being amazing, as usual.

Of course, it wasn't all plain sailing for everyone's favourite ball of happiness, and if Ray was honest with himself, he was most certainly anything _but_ a ball of happiness, and if he was honest with himself, that was definitely Mikey Way's fault.

Ray's brother was back from college for the first time in months, and Ray reckoned that Mikey didn't even know that he'd left in the first place, let alone the fact that Ray even had a brother in the first place.

Ray wondered why he even bothered, and why he still even cared, but it was definitely harder than he told himself it was: this cutting yourself off from people thing.

Because he'd vowed, only days ago, never to think about Mikey again, well, at least not in that way, and sure it had been working perfectly for a while, as he'd had the strength to block out every stupid little thought, but all it took was one failure, one time when Ray told himself that he could just imagine them getting back together and everything being perfect just this once, that was all it took for it all to come crumbling down again.

Ray was sad: desperately sad, sad enough for his brother to notice, and that wasn't something that Ray wanted him to come home to.

Ray wanted to be okay, and he most certainly wanted everyone to think he was okay.

Ray reckoned he definitely needed to get better at lying to people, because he was no Mikey Way after all, and he had to live with that everyday; not getting everything for granted, not having everyone's heart, not having everyone's sympathies, not having the brother that's there, and the brother that gives a fuck, and the brother he could tell everything to.

Of course, Mikey had never really appreciated Gee, had he? And still Gee appreciated him.

And Ray began to wonder if he was less of the Mikey here, and more of the Gee Way, although, he reckoned he wouldn't exactly look all that great in a skirt; of course, he could be wrong, but that wasn't something Ray was willing to try.

Because, of course, curling up in the corner of his bedroom trying not to cry was a much better alternative.

Ray didn't think of it like that; he couldn't think of it like that, and in fact, it wasn't like he had all that much time to ponder over the mess he'd made of his life, before his bedroom door was opening, and he looked up to see that goddamn brother of his, and that goddamn smile that Ray hadn't even practiced faking yet.

It took the older boy, Lou, something like thirty seconds to actually take note of the tear stained face of his younger brother, who was curled up in the corner, and well, when he did notice it, it was one hell of a reaction.

" _Fuck_ , Ray, what the _fuck_ is wrong with you? Are you okay?" And the slam of a bedroom door as he hurried to sit beside his younger brother, because somehow, perhaps in the months he'd spent away in college, Lou Toro had discovered the magic known as the ability of giving a fuck.

"I'm fine." Ray protested, shaking his head a little, because the whole 'I got gay with Mikey Way and now I'm super depressed over it' wouldn't exactly be what his brother wanted to hear.

"That's not true, come on, we _all_ know it." Lou shook his head in disbelief.

"Who's 'we all'?" Ray asked, raising his eyebrows a little, as he met his brother's gaze for the first time in months, and came to realise that it was much harder to lie to him face to face than it was via text message or even over the phone.

"The whole world." He shrugged it off with somewhat misplaced laughter.

"Really?" Ray shook his head in disbelief, but the sincerity upon Lou's face never once did fade.

"Really. Now come on, just tell me; I don't want you to cry, and I'm your big brother, so it's my job to make sure that you're okay."

"Because you were doing such a great job of that when you were away at college forever..." And perhaps Ray hadn't exactly meant to say that aloud.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here for you, okay, and I can make that up to you if you just tell me and let me help-"

"You _can't_ help!" Ray protested, even going as far as to raise his voice a little.

"Fucking try me."

And _fuck_ , because what else did Ray have left, and it wasn't like his brother was even going to be in the same state in three days time, so to fucking _hell_ with it.

"My boyfriend broke up with me and I'm sad because I still like him." And perhaps Ray should have introduced that with a little 'I'm gay' speech or something equally as ridiculous, because Lou was perhaps far more overwhelmed than he ever could have accounted for.

"Tell him you still like him?" His solution was both delayed and mediocre at best, but at least he'd said _something_ , anything at all, and on the plus side, if there was homophobia and judgement behind his words, he did a pretty damn good job of hiding it.

"I can't, because he hates me and we don't talk and he lives with his brother now so I don't even really see him and he avoids me at school, and then Frank, our other friend, is definitely closer to him than me, and Frank stills talks to me some times, but I'm definitely not his first resort, and that fucking hurts, because I've always been there for Frank, _always_ , you know? When Mikey was an asshole to him, I kept his secrets even when I felt like I shouldn't and-"

"These people fucking suck, Ray, why are you friends with them?" And Lou didn't give his brother an awful lot of an opportunity to reply. "Go get some new friends that actually give a fuck about you, how about that? Don't waste your time with things and people that don't make you happy, you got that?"

And Ray nodded, and even _smiled_ for the first time in what felt like forever, "yeah."

-


	44. Are You Suggesting That We Make Bert McCracken A Grindr?

"Tell me what?"

And the silence that followed was all kinds of world shattering, as several hearts broke at once, because fuck, _no_ , this most certainly was _not_ supposed to happen, and Gee knew that he was done for exactly then and exactly there, but still, Frank ignored the fear in his eyes, and continued to glance between the two with raised eyebrows.

"It's nothing." Gee shook his head, doing an absolutely lacklustre job of fucking lying to himself, because Frank wasn't stupid, and he already knew that _something_ was up, because the two just simply didn't keep secrets; it had never been like that, and it never would, and on the few occasions they did, things always went to shit.

"Is it now?" Frank remained unconvinced, Bill taking the hint to leave the room as Frank took a seat opposite Gee.

"Yeah, it is, Frankie." Gee kept his tone stern, hoping he could somehow bullshit his way through this, or perhaps just end up getting Frank drunk enough to forget it, because Gee most certainly didn't have enough dignity to rule that out.

"Don’t fucking 'Frankie' me." Frank snapped, glaring at his boyfriend with a kind of severely unexpected hatred, but Frank was tired, and Gee couldn't look him in the eye, and this was all kinds of wrong.

"What the fuck else am I supposed to call you? It's your fucking name." Gee shook his head, offering Frank a cigarette, that they seemed to stop arguing momentarily for, because cigarettes were definitely more important than their feelings.

"Just tell me what it is, you're making me paranoid, Gee." Frank let out a sigh, shaking his head a little, because he'd overreacted, and with a puff of nicotine, he could see that. "And _don't_ say nothing, because that's you lying to me, and I really fucking don't like that."

"Okay, then, it's something, but it's nothing _important_." Gee continued, smiling up at Frank, just a little tentatively.

"Then why don't you tell me if it's not important?" Frank asked, putting his feet up on the table, and shooting Gee one hell of a glare. "You're doing an excellent job of pissing me off, you know that, don't you, Gee?"

"I'm sorry." Gee shook his head, "look it's really nothing important, it's something that happened ages ago that's going to make you upset, and it doesn't affect anything now, so I don't see why you should get upset over something that doesn't matter anymore-"

"Well, I won't get upset over it if it doesn’t matter will I?" Frank exclaimed, shaking his head a little. "You're really fucking _impossible_ , you know that, don't you, Gee?"

"It's simple, it's unimportant, and I-"

"Fucking _tell_ me, just _tell_ me, Gee, before I fucking _slap_ you or something-" Frank shook his head, stopping as he realised he'd overstepped some line here. "I'm sorry, I would _never_ slap you, Gee. I love you, I'm sorry, this is stupid, let's just forget about it?"

And that was the exact moment that Gee Way broke down in tears, and for the absolute life of him, Frank just couldn't figure out why.

"I'm _sorry_." Frank pleaded, rushing to sit besides his boyfriend, and pull him into a hug, "fuck, I'm so sorry-"

"No, _I'm_ sorry." Gee choked out, meeting Frank's gaze with red, puffy, tear-stained eyes. "I'm the fuck up here, I-"

"You're not, I-"

"Remember that last argument when... I... h-hit you... I had forgotten about that, and I... I'm so sorry, I love you so much, and you're too good for me, you're too fucking good for me, but I love you so much, Frankie, and I should probably tell you the thing, but it's going to make you hate me, and I really can't deal with that-"

"I could _never_ hate you Gee, look that's all in the past now, I love you so much too, look, I bet I couldn't hate you, even if I tried." Frank let out a sigh, as he pressed a kiss to Gee's forehead, and wiped the tears from under his eyes, "god, you're _so_ beautiful, you know that, don't you?"

And Gee blushed like hell itself, exhaling loudly as he prepared himself to ruin his life. "I... fucked... Bert... when... when we had broken up, you know that whole mess, but I lied to you about it because you said something about only taking me back if I'd only fucked Dallon, and I lied, because I-... I can't... I love you so much, Frank, and I can't _not_ be with you... and I fucked up so bad, and I..."

"Fuck, Gee." Frank shook his head, sighing as he tucked Gee's hair behind his ears, "what did you do that for? Especially with what Bert's done to you in the past?"

"I was drunk, you know how I was worse with alcohol then, I... I was real fucking drunk and really fucked up because of you, and Bert suggested it, and I said yes, because I fucking... I don't know, I needed someone, but I didn't need him: I needed you."

And they just sat there in silence for too long as Frank shook his head, biting his lip, and trying not to cry, because it'd be so fucking pathetic if they were both crying.

"You know when I graduate high school, us two are going to somewhere together away from this mess and it'll all be okay, and it can be just that: just us." And before Gee could even respond, Frank was kissing him and holding him like he was scared that he might suddenly fade away, and it was all kinds of pathetic, and even more kinds of hopeless, but it was right, and in that moment it was indeed enough.

"I love you." Gee said for the millionth time, perhaps never meaning it more, as he held Frank's hand so tight that it might break off.

"I love you too, you fucking idiot." Frank sighed out, pressing his head against Gee's chest, as the two sat there in silence for a while. "What's happening with Bill?"

"He's leaving, he's going back to some friend or Gabe or whatever, early tomorrow, before Bert can stop him."

"I swear Bert is the root of everyone's problems here."

"He's not." Gee shook his head, surprising Frank in his defence of Bert. "He's just fucked up, and lonely, and stoned or pissed all the time, and that's why he lets me stay here; he's lonely, and he's scared, and sad, and he just needs to find someone that makes him happy: someone that isn't seventeen, someone who doesn't have a boyfriend, or isn't your mum-"

"Are you suggesting that we make Bert McCracken a Grindr?"

And a grin as Gee's eyes lit up. " _Yes_."

-

Gabe Saporta wasn't one for going outside on cold early mornings, but William Beckett changed that.

Gabe Saporta wasn't one for dressing up as Jesus from some dude's cousin's wedding, only to then get that certain dude kicked out of his house, but William Beckett changed that.

Gabe Saporta wasn't one for fucking up royally, but William Beckett changed that.

And to say that eighteen year old Bill Beckett wasn't really something special, would be nothing short of a blatant lie, because Gabe Saporta was the lively proof that there was just _something_ about everyone's favourite blatantly homosexual dork.

To say that Gabe was the only one of the pair who'd changed was too a lie, because ever since the 'Jesus incident' Bill had never quite been the same; the way his mother had treated him because of his sexuality had really struck a chord in him, and it wasn't like he was to blame - getting disowned by your parents fucking _hurt_.

Sure living with your boyfriend was a benefit, but it was never the same, and when things fucked up, things _fucked_ up, and Bill had ended up living with some random drug addict who'd called him cute and invited him into bed with him, and said random drug addict was not far off a decade older than him.

And perhaps Bill shouldn't have called Gabe, and perhaps Travie should have answered after the first call, and perhaps Bill shouldn't have gotten nervous, and perhaps Gee shouldn't have been so insistent, but there was no changing any of that now, and Bill knew that as he approached the play park, and he saw an all too familiar, yet all too distant boy stood there, waiting for him.

He wondered how long Gabe had been stood there waiting, and in turn, he wonder how long Gab would have waited if he had indeed never turned up, and fuck that hurt, and perhaps everything did when you were in a position like Bill's.

Perhaps that was for the better, though: what was life without the pain and the ache? Dull and boring, of course.

And what was life without the risks taken to see that beautiful fucking asshole Gabe Saporta smile again? Fucking stupid, and Bill knew that within an instant.

And in that same instant, Bill knew that he was little bit fucked, but perhaps that was how he wanted things to be, perhaps there was little other alternative - perhaps things would work out in an odd way in the end, as things often did, and also as things often didn't.

When Bill finally reached the play park, the two kind of just stood before one another for a moment, just letting the circumstances set in, and revel in the wondrous mess they'd whipped up together, because a disaster on a scale like this did indeed take some skill in concocting, and if they had nothing, at least they had that, and in a way that served as condolence, although to both of them, it meant very little at all.

"I’ve missed you." Gabe was the first to speak, and he started with perhaps the most and only honest statement he could utter at that moment in time.

"I missed you too." Bill added, blushing a little, perhaps more out of awkwardness than any kind of romanticism, but time would of course tell how that changed, and how they changed, and how things changed, and how things could possibly be when they made it out of this hell.

"Where did you even go, Bill?" And before Gabe could stop himself, everything was tumbling from his lips, and uncensored and raw, and enough to fuck everything up again, because Bill Beckett was too much and never quite enough and all at the same time, and all in the same ways, and Gabe felt like dying around him, but in a good way, if there ever was a good way, or if Gabe was simply just mad by this point.

"I stayed with Bert... McCracken." He admitted, blushing a little, because he knew that Gabe was aware of Bert McCracken, just who he was, and just how _old_ he was. "I... I changed my mind, because... well... Gee, Gee Way, you know Gee, Frank's boyfriend, he started talking to me, and I was kind of fucked up and lost in my own head and the mess I'd made for myself, but he told me it straight, and it hurt, and I kind of couldn't deal, but that was the truth and the reality and I miss you and I'm sorry, and I need to fix things here, _somehow_ : I'm not sure how, but help me out here, Gabe, please."

"I'm sorry too." And Gabe meant it enough, _just_ enough for him not lie, but nowhere near enough for it to be heartfelt enough to matter, but Bill was far too caught up in the moment to notice, and that was either Gabe's saving grace or the very thing that was destined to ruin him.

"We fucked up, I fucked up mainly, and you fucked up too, and I think we should start talking again." And Bill was scared to ask, _too_ scared to ask, but even more scared to go back and face Gee and Bert, and the hole he'd dug for himself to fall into.

"Yeah, it's all good, I fucked up most though, and it's fine: we both know that-"

And Bill found himself cutting Gabe off before he could stop himself, because his head was a mess, and his words and actions reflected that. "Can I come back? To live with you again? Because I've not really got anywhere else again, I haven't talked to Travie in ages, and his mum doesn't really like me, and I... we don't have to _date_ again, just... I don't... I don't want to go back and live with Bert again...."

And silence: overthinking on both boys' part.

"I don't want you to go back to Bert either; he's a really bad guy, you know?" And Bill nodded, because deep down, despite the smiles and the mess they'd made, he did. "You can stay again, but like... I don't know if my head's in the right place to consider dating anyone right now..."

"That's fine - thank you, really, _so much_." And perhaps Bill had never meant anything more. "My head's a bit fucked too, so that's good for me too." And perhaps Bill had never meant anything less.

"So, like, are you-"

"I'll just go get my stuff, stay here - it's probably best if Bert doesn't see you, he'll probably punch you or something."

"Jesus, what have you told him about me?"

"Nothing, he's just _Bert_..."

And perhaps that was how things should have been, but they weren't, not really.

-

Brendon reckoned he had to get out of that house before he ended up punching someone in the face, because this was exactly how he'd fucked up his life last time; well, not exactly with so much face punching, but along the same lines, because Brendon knew through and through, that no matter the circumstances, Ryan would always side with Patrick over him, and Brendon just couldn't help where he stood in regards to this whole mess.

Because there really was absolutely no other way to put it; this was a absolutely nothing more than a mess, and Brendon regretted not even just muttering a quick apology to Ryan before he'd made it out the backdoor and down a few roads, before making it into the forest, and only then slowly to a normal pace, because only then was Brendon anything at all reminiscent of okay.

Brendon's head was a little fucked up, to say the least.

It was Ryan Ross' fault, to say the least.

But Brendon could never blame him, to say too much entirely.

Brendon was pathetic and apathetic and all at the same time and all in the wrong places, and his head was spinning, and he regretted living that one last packet of cigarettes on Ryan Ross' dining room table, because perhaps he needed the nicotine more than he needed his own common sense.

Perhaps Brendon didn't even have any common sense at all; it wouldn't exactly be _unlikely_ , especially from where the majority of his peer group where standing.

The majority of them _hated_ his guts, and he reckoned that without Ryan and Sarah, he'd have been shot by now, and perhaps Brendon didn't entirely blame them.

He was quite the asshole, but he didn't have the pride that completed the masquerade anymore; he was broken, and even more reluctant to admit it, and his life was on a downwards spiral that started now.

It wasn't Patrick's fault, and Patrick needed Ryan more than he did, especially if he kept hallucinating, or whatever, but Brendon couldn't help but be selfish and yearn for that chance with Ryan again, because until Patrick turned up, he reckoned the two were nearly there.

Because on that sofa, kind of late at night, with blissful smiles and sleepy eyes, nothing had mattered in the world besides one another, and Brendon reckoned he wouldn't ever get that kind of thing back again.

He could perhaps liken it to the playground and the swings and the fuck and Dallon, but of course, disaster had to strike next, and perhaps this was Brendon leaving to save himself, but of course, he hadn't a fucking _clue_ as to where he was going, and he had even less of a clue as to what would become of him, because to put it politely, he was a fuck up.

And to put it crudely, he was the cause of _everyone’s_ problems.

Or at least that's what it felt like, and perhaps Brendon wasn't even that far off as he stumbled down to the canal and considered throwing himself into the water as he sat down on the paving stones and tried not to look at the stupid remarks he and Ryan had carved into the stone what was mere weeks ago, but indeed felt like _years_.

Fuck, he was _fucked_.

And he couldn't quite figure out where to go from here, because with a heart beating as fast as his was right now, somehow going back to Ryan's just didn't seem like a viable option, in fact, nothing seemed like a viable option.

In fact, this was just about how it all fell to pieces; the pieces that Brendon had been clutching hopelessly at in a lacklustre attempt to hold them all together, before everything came crashing down.

Well, fuck that now, because what else did he even have left?

All Ryan could care about was Patrick now, and Sarah was always talking about Gabe, and Kitty would stab him if he went within four miles of Sarah, and Brendon just tried not to think about the connotations of that, because there were some serious homosexual vibes going on there, and he could _not_ deny it, and-

"I'm fucked." And Brendon was almost genuinely shocked to find that the words hadn't slipped his own lips, but the lips of the boy who had sat down beside him.

" _Mikey_?" He widened his eyes a little as he took in the boy's rather sleep deprived appearance, and with what he'd been through last night, Brendon barely blamed him.

"Hey..." Mikey trailed off, focusing his gaze on water and the slow ripples and a family of ducks that were totally going to get squashed by that ship if they weren't careful.

"Are you okay?" Brendon asked, and it was the most stupidest of questions, but the two really didn't have that much else between them worth discussing. "The whole thing with Pete, I mean, like I-"

"I don't know; no, it's not, of course, it's not, I-" Mikey shook his head, not entirely sure what to make of the mess he'd made for himself at all. "I don't know what to think, and I don't want to chance going back for answers, because it... seeing him, you know, it _fucks_ with your mind, I... just... you think he's back, but he's not, not really; he'll never be _back_ , and it's so hard to accept that, almost impossible, and think Patrick's given up on that front, and that's where I'm destined, isn't it?"

Brendon shook his head, suddenly feeling a sudden urge to defend and comfort the lanky boy who he'd never really spoken to before. "No, it's not, of course it's not, and whatever this is, it doesn't have to define you; you can... fuck... I don't know... I'm trying to give you advice but there's no advice to give? I... just..."

"It's okay." Mikey pulled his lips up into a smile, "it's okay, I don't expect that from you, it's not... it's just... what am I even supposed to do? Because the only thing that makes sense is to just forget it, but that's the most ridiculous idea in the world, and I just..." Mikey shook his head, "I can't go near Patrick again, I really can't."

"I can't either; it freaks me out, if I'm honest, and Ryan's going to end up hating me again because of all of this, and I know it, but there's nothing I can do about it, is there? Because Ryan will always care about Patrick more than he's ever going to care about me-"

"That's not _true-"_

"Mikey, I honestly wish you were right, but you're not, you're anything _but_ right." Brendon paused, shaking his head, "and that's just how things are going to be: I have that moment, the top of the rollercoaster the elation point, and then it's all down, so fucking down, vertical slope kind of heart attack mess for weeks and months afterwards. And I have no control over that; that's just how it's _always_ going to be, but I guess accepting it's a start."

-

Mikey didn't quite know what was wrong with him, but he most definitely knew there was _something_ , because things like this didn't 'just happen', and Mikey wasn't like Patrick, and he couldn't trick himself into thinking that this was okay, no matter how hard he tried or no matter how hard he wanted to, because _fuck_ , he really did.

And Bert had been anything but help, but it was Bert, and Mikey hadn't expected, well, _anything_ at all, and Gee kept looking at him weird, and perhaps he didn't blame him, because okay, maybe, just maybe, Mikey had been ignoring him for a while, and maybe it had something to do with this mess with Pete, and the fact that Mikey couldn't look his older brother in the eye anymore, because Gee had to _know_ at this point, because Frank was a good friend, but Mikey knew that Gee came before everything in Frank's world, and that in turn, there was no way around that.

But Mikey reckoned he was safe out here alone, after Brendon had left, and he didn't even blame him, because who the fuck wanted to talk to a mess like him, and certainly not _Brendon_ , of all people.

But, he couldn't help but feel alone, and his heart couldn't help but ache a little, and he couldn't help but sit down and just fucking wish he could turn back time to when everything was okay, and everything was just about Alicia Simmons' ass, and god, her ass wasn't even that spectacular, and dear god, Mikey was pathetic as fuck when he thought he was straight.

Mikey reckoned he was _still_ pathetic as fuck, and it was most certainly within reason.

Because, here he was, running away and hiding from his problems, because he couldn't face anyone he loved, and he couldn't stop thinking about what Bert had said about 'maybe this all being fine', and how it meant nothing, and how that was literally the worst attempt at lying to him that Mikey had ever encountered, but still, it was the only lie worth believing, because maybe then he could stay sane.

"Fuck..." He cursed aloud, shaking his head a little, as he kicked the dirt with the heels of his converse; he was stumped at what to do, and somehow he was still very passive aggressively angry at Patrick for just sitting there and letting all this happen, because it was quite easily the stupidest idea Mikey had ever heard, but it really wasn’t like he was that much better off, was it? "Fuck me." He continued, shaking his head in disbelief.

And the heart attack of the century. "I'd like to."

And Mikey reckoned he couldn't even breathe as fucking _Pete Wentz_ sat down beside him; the two with their backs against a tree trunk.

"Sorry, if I scared you-"

"You don't think that's a fucking understatement, Pete, you're fucking _ruining_ my life, you get me?" Mikey snapped, glaring at the 'hallucination' beside him. "Where's Patrick?"

"I don't know? At Ryan’s, probably." Pete shrugged it off, still somehow _smiling_ at Mikey.

"Aren't you like... don't you... like... I don't know, but... aren't you 'attached' to Patrick?" Mikey shook his head in disbelief at the fact that he was even attempting to make any kind of sense out of this mess.

"Patrick can see me, you can see me, surely I'm connected to both of you-"

"Pete..." Mikey shook his head, meeting his dead boyfriend's gaze, "you're not real."

"Patrick thinks I'm real." Pete protested, almost looking personally offended by the truth, god it was like he was a social justice warrior or something.

"Well... Patrick's... _Patrick_." Mikey let out a sigh, avoiding Pete's gaze as he spoke. "He... you know... he's not coping with things well, he... this... he kept seeing you at first, but I couldn't, and I..."

"When we were in Gee's living room?" Pete asked, almost giving Mikey a heartache as he did so, because this figment of his and Patrick's imagination wasn't supposed to just know things, remember? But still, Mikey nodded. "You didn’t want to see me."

"And I do now?" Mikey almost laughed that one off, because quite honestly, it was anything _but_ true, and deep down he reckoned that they both knew it, perhaps that the _whole_ world knew it, even.

And all it took was one word: "Ray."

"What the fuck are you implying-"

"Ray, you had Ray then, but you fucked that up now, and you miss me, so you want to see me, so you're desperate, you're 'like Patrick', don't lie to yourself, Mikey, you're not any 'better' than him, and don't fucking talk about Patrick like that, because I care about him too-"

"You're not _real_." Mikey repeated, perhaps just for his own benefit.

"So you're talking to a hallucination right now, are you, huh?" Pete raised his eyebrows, and Mikey seriously wondered if this asshole could die _twice_.

"Okay fine, why the _fuck_ did you kill yourself, 'Pete'?" Mikey asked, caring very little about the feelings of this hallucination of his, because he reckoned that at least he was saving himself all the symptoms of insanity.

"Because I love you, and I couldn't deal with that and Patrick-"

"You're _selfish_ , and you're just saying what you want me to hear, and you just-" Mikey shook his head, getting to his feet. "Don't fucking follow me, leave me the fuck alone, you got that? You're not _real_."

"If I'm not real then why are you talking to yourself?"

And Mikey didn’t answer, he only ran, and he fucking ran through the woods to the part of town he was unfamiliar with, until his feet ached, and his whole body wanted to fucking collapse, and Mikey really wasn't very sporty, so he ran for like four minutes, at the most.

But perhaps that was enough, perhaps it was never enough, because as he threw himself down onto a park bench, and began to sob like the whole world had disappeared around him, an all too familiar figure sat down beside him.

And just at the very least, it wasn't Pete.

"You look upset." _Bert_ was the first to point out the obvious, and it wasn't something that Mikey Way entirely thankful for at all.

"Of course I'm upset; I'm fucking ruining my life by just existing and there's pretty much _nothing_ that I can do about it." Mikey snapped, shaking his head a little, as he finally met Bert's gaze. "What is it with you? Why do you care about me?"

"Because you don't deserve to be upset-"

Mikey contorted his face into a frown. "No one deserves to be upset."

"I know." Bert added with a sigh, "I know."

"You don't seem to though, especially as you continue to make people upset, which really fucking sucks, you know? Especially when it's my brother that you're making upset; Gee doesn't like you, just so you know, he _doesn't_ like you."

"He used to." Bert let out a sigh, "when we first met he seemed in admiration of me, but he was young then, and he just needed some place to stay, and I took advantage of that, like an asshole, and Gee didn't know better, but he does know, and he realises how much better than me he is, how much he deserves, the like, and that's why he hates me."

"I didn't ask him why he hates you? I just told you that he hates you, because you keep brushing it off, and I don't like that-"

"So do enlighten me, Mikey Way, what exactly am I supposed to do, what exactly am I supposed to say in response?" Bert was quickly losing his temper now, and Mikey was well aware of it, but perhaps he just didn't _care_.

"I'm sorry." Mikey snapped, meeting Bert's gaze. "You're supposed to apologise, not to me, but to him, and you're supposed to make things right, because every time he looks at you, even just for a moment, there's an odd look in his eyes, and it's because suddenly his mind is pulled back a few years in time, and you're meeting for the first time again, and he can't stop what's happening; he can't stop this mess, no matter what he does."

"It's not like I _forced_ him to move in with me, is it? And it's not like I'm going to protest when him and Frank inevitably move in together, but... what I have figured out from that, is that Gee is going to go with Frank, who the fuck knows where, in one hell of a whirlwind decision, and where are you going to be in all of that? Still here, with nowhere to go but my place. And I like you, so I'll let you stay, but maybe you should put some thought into ensuring that things stay that way."

"Don't manipulate me into liking you, Bert." Mikey snapped, glaring at the man with an odd look in his eyes. "Why do you care about me at all? I'm just Gee's brother, aren't I?"

"I care about Gee, and you're my chance to make things up to him, aren't you-"

"I'm not a _chance_ , Bert, I'm a _person_." Mikey didn't move his gaze from the older man's. "And that's where you're fucking up. Gee maybe amazing, but he isn't everything and he isn't yours, and I'm not him, and _fuck_ \- you still have feelings for him, don't you?"

Bert made no response, but the silence was enough.

" _Fuck_." Mikey shook his head in utter disbelief. "Don't you dare fuck up his relationship with Frank-"

"Why do you assume I fuck everything up?"

"Because, Bert, you _do_."

"You know what, Mikey Way? My father told me the exact same age eleven when he hit me for the first time." Bert paused, swallowing hard, "so don't fucking tell me how to think or how to feel because I've had more than enough of that in my life already."

And for what Mikey assumed to be the first time ever, Bert McCracken started to cry.

-


	45. Panic! At The Maths Test

"You can't put off talking to him forever." Frank's words were heavy and far too meaningful for Mikey's liking, as the two boys made their way into school, ignoring the mess of students around them, as the hard hitting nature of their own conversation seemed to make everything else in the whole world very little but insignificant.

"Watch me, Frank, fucking _watch me_." Mikey chose to attack the situation with a half-hearted kind of spite, because he had little else left, and he wasn't quite all that he made himself out to be. "Sorry, I..." Mikey shook his head, because he was _so_ fucked and everything was fucked, and he'd forgotten all about this maths test, because in the scheme of things, it barely mattered at all, but he reckoned that his maths teacher wouldn't quite think of it the same way.

"It's fine, I get you, well, I... you know, I get that things aren't easy for you, but he's your _brother_ Mikey and you can't just ignore him like this; it's upsetting him too." The two stopped by their lockers, and Mikey used the gathering of several books he didn't really need as a wonderful excuse to avoid Frank's words, because they were little off the truth, and Mikey couldn't evade that, no matter how hard he tried.

"Fuck, Frank, I just, I know he cares, but I think that's too much, because I can't handle myself, and I don't want him to know that, because I don't want to upset him, because he's happy now and he's got you, and I don't want to fuck that up, because everything is guilt for treating Gee like I used to, and just letting my parents do the same." Mikey shook his head, biting down on his bottom lip and regretting the heavy hitting nature of these early morning thoughts.

Frank paused for a moment: perplexed, at a loss for what to say, perhaps. "It's okay, Mikey, I know he forgives you, and I know what you did was fucked up, but I guess, it was your parents: we're not born ignorant, we're not born bad people, that's just how we're raised, and that's not our fault, is it? Because if we change that, because we _can_ change that, then it's okay again, isn't it?"

"He's made you so much more at ease with yourself and everything, I can tell you that." Mikey let out an awkward breathy kind of laugh, as he caught sight of Ray at the end of the corridor, talking to two boys he couldn't quite recognise from the distance, but he made an effort not to ponder upon it, as he turned back to Frank.

"I reckon it's just the weed - being in that house all the time, you fucking _breathe_ that shit in like a supplement to oxygen, but fuck it if I care, I don't know, hey, maybe it is him, maybe..." Frank blushed, shaking his head, "I don't know, but I know that I love him, and I know that he loves you, and that you need to talk to him about this, like today, after school."

Mikey nodded, forcing his lips up into a smile, "and I _know_ , that I'm going to fucking _fail_ this maths test."

Frank's eyes widened in shock, "what maths test?"

And Mikey couldn't help but laugh, only for the two to be interrupted as Gabe Saporta tapped Frank on the shoulder, catching him by surprise, and leaving Mikey in hysterics at the height difference between the two.

"Hey, uhh... you're Frank, right?" Gabe asked, blushing a little, because this was kind of awkward, to say the least. Frank nodded in response, and the _much_ taller boy continued, "yeah, thank you, thank your boyfriend for me, because he talked Bill into leaving Bert and... I think we're okay now, I think everything's going to be okay now, I mean, things aren't going to be the same since Dallon died, and I get that, but, between me and Bill at least."

"Yeah, I'll mention it to him." Frank smiled in response, "I'm glad you and Bill are back together, I think you work."

"Thanks." And with that Gabe Saporta had disappeared down the corridor, and Frank was left just a little bewildered.

"I didn't know Gee talked to Bill about Bert or anything at all..." Frank exclaimed, shaking his head a little, "I... I... what the hell could he have said to Bill to make him _leave_ Bert, like Bill was fucked up and stricken with him, and-"

"I had no idea either." Mikey shook his head a little, peering after Gabe, but finding his gaze settling upon Ray once more, and cursing aloud.

"I'll ask him later- _what_?" Frank responded as Mikey cringed a little and turned away from the corridor, leaving Frank to look behind him and eventually fall upon Ray, and find himself more than a little confused. "What- did you two and Ray fall out or something? I didn't know-"

" _Fuck_..." Mikey shook his head in disbelief, "we haven't spoken so much in so long that you really don't know anything at all, do you?" Frank shook his head, and Mikey cursed aloud for the second time, because fuck it, fuck his life, "Ray and I dated, for a bit... it was weird... really weird... it wasn't long after Pete died, but we kept it secret and it wasn't official, and it was mainly just fucking, and things were all kinds of fucked up, and I remember it like yesterday: Ray's dog dying and everything, and I just... things didn't work out: things are messy, he hates me now, and no one's really supposed to know."

"Can I talk to him about it?" Frank asked, sneaking another glance in Ray's direction, unable to stop himself feeling just a little sorry for the guy.

Mikey shook his head in a firm 'no', "I don't want people to think that Pete meant nothing to me-"

"Why would they think that?" Frank exclaimed, eyes widened in genuine confusion.

"Because I got with Ray so soon, and I... it's like I didn't care about Pete at all, and-"

"Hey, I bet Pete would have just wanted you to be happy, and if that thing with Ray made you happy in the moment, then I guess he would have been okay with it." Frank pulled on a smile, stepping closer to Mikey.

"Well, it's not like I can’t fucking find out now is it? I could literally just ask him, but-"

"You're not going to?"

Mikey shook his head, "I _can't_ , I... I... I know pretending it didn't happen isn't exactly long term, but it's keeping me same for the time being, and I have few better ideas."

"You've got to face this, Mikey, come on, promise me you'll talk to Gee about it at the very least."

"If I do will you let me copy your answers on this test?"

Frank laughed, shaking his head a little, "I have about as much of a clue as you do, Mikey, but sure, fuck it, _whatever_."

And in that smile, and in that moment, the weight of the world didn't quite feel so heavy anymore.

-

Brendon Urie walked into the maths classroom, and for a moment, he really believed he'd taken a wrong turn and somehow ended up at a disco, because he was panicking! like hell. In fact, he was panicking so much that it was necessary to use an exclamation mark midsentence to express his utter panic!, because, he too, had completely forgotten about the maths test, what with, you know, Patrick coming back, and Pete, and like Dallon dying, and the whole world going to shit and all that.

His maths teacher, Miss Jackson, glared at him a little as he walked in, perhaps having noticed the gaping, bewildered stare upon his face as he glanced at the board and read the words 'maths test', which was basically a dead giveaway for the whole 'oh shit I haven't revised'.

Brendon reckoned Ray was probably clever so he sat next to him, and he was really feeling like a sinner because he was about to stand up and sing hallelujah to god or something, because he was probably going to have to genuinely save his soul to pass this maths test, because, for some reason, it did indeed matter a lot to him - perhaps he was just seeing things from a new perspective.

As the final few students filed in, and instantly regretted doing so, Miss Jackson, gave the class a rather nasty look as she approached the front of the classroom and rattled off some basic 'no cheating' bullshit, however, she paused midsentence, her eyes widening in shock as they fell upon a certain object upon Ryan Ross' desk.

"You do know that water is the only liquid allowed in tests, don't you, Mr Ross?" She gave him a stern gaze, as she grabbed the two litre bottle of milk off of his desk with a look of confusion.

"Milk helps me concentrate-" Ryan protested, all wide eyed, and well Brendon, was nothing but seriously fucking confused on the other side of the classroom; Miss Jackson brushed it off, and the test began as usual, and Brendon opened his paper, and read the question to himself, and very nearly stabbed him, until suddenly a voice came from the back of the classroom.

"What the fuck is an algebra?" And as you can guess, Miss Jackson rather suddenly became rather nasty. "Sorry..." Gabe blushed, "didn't mean to say that aloud I just-"

"You don't know what algebra is?" Jamia looked up from the other side of the room and stifled laughter, "good luck then, this is a maths test-"

"You know tests are usually taken in silence?" Miss Jackson, shook her head: knowing this class was all beyond fucked anyway, and made her outside, muttering something about the bathroom as she went.

"Quick someone stab someone." Gabe stood up as soon as she left the room.

" _What?"_ Frank retorted, all wide eyes, and very, _very_ confused.

"If someone dies then the test is invalid, basically it's fucked, so someone has to take one for the team, you all know what I mean."

"Or we could just..." Jamia got up, making her way across the room, and smirking at Gabe as she did so, "do this," and with that, she smashed the glass to the button, and the fire alarm sounded throughout the building.

"You're a genius!" Gabe exclaimed, as the students gathered their things and headed towards the door, "tell me what the fuck algebra is and I'll marry you, I promise."

Jamia rolled her eyes, and made her way out with Frank; the class doing their best to look incredibly startled and stressed, and totally concerned about both their safety and their maths test, and not like they hadn't just considered murder/sacrifice to get out of doing it, because who the fuck actually studied for the maths test?

At the designated fire assembly point, the school was gathered, and some very bewildered looking woman counted people off, and with that, Frank and Jamia shared a look and snuck off around the back, quickly making their way out of school, and well, to god knows where from there.

"That's the best thing you've ever done." And Frank reckoned he truly meant it, smiling at Jamia as the two made their way down the road: doing all they could to get as far away from the building as they could in the shortest amount of time.

"I know, like Gabe's face - 'what's an algebra?', god, he's an idiot." Jamia shook her head, giddy with laughter as she lit a cigarette. "We're totally going to get in shit for this, you know?"

"I know." Frank let out a sigh, laughing a little as he did so, "but it was for the greater good, that was a real panic at the maths test- _shit_ , we left Mikey behind." Frank stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening in the direction of the school.

"Believe it or not, he's your boyfriend's little brother, _not_ yours - he'll be fine." Jamia shook her head, and grabbed Frank by the arm as she dragged him down the street,

"Gee'll be pissed if I come back without him." Frank groaned, blushing a little, because fuck everything, and fuck, Jamia was so much cooler than him, and fuck, he really needed to tell Gabe Saporta just what 'an algebra' was.

"Then don't, come to Lindsey's, with me." Her face lit up into a smile, and Frank reckoned he had very little of a choice in the matter. "You never spend much time with her, you know?"

"Yeah, the whole lesbian punk band aesthetic is kind of terrifying, if I'm honest." Frank admitted, blushing a little as he did so.

" _Thank you_." And the sincerity of Jamia's response just about made Frank's fucking _life_.

"God, you're an _idiot_." Frank shook his head in disbelief, before pausing for a moment, "you know? What are you going to do when school's finished?"

"Mmm?" Jamia choked a little on her cigarette as the ever-looming threat of her future stepped forward to slap her in the face. " _Well_... I don't know, I'll probably do Lindsey, to be honest, but that might change in that time-"

"No, I mean..."

"I know what you mean. I don't know, Frank, I have no fucking clue and well, I'd rather not think about it, so, do tell me, Frankie, what the fuck are you going to do with your life?"

"Gee, probably." And Jamia was so close to slapping him. "But seriously... I want to move away: just me and Gee, but I don't know how that's going to work, _if_ that's going to work, and I... I don't know, but this year's nearly over, and we've got one more after this, and then... then.. that's _it_."

"That's it." She repeated, "too ominous, Frankie, _that's that_ ," she corrected, reaching out for the door, "come on, let's go explain to Lindsey how we totally fucked the school up."

"It'd been better if you had actually set it on fire, not going to lie-"

"It was for Gabe's sake, come on."

-

Kitty was never quite this shy or internally dead around anyone, but Sarah Orzechowski was far from just _anyone_.

And perhaps she'd known that from day one: from when Sarah had first joined the band, perhaps even before that.

Kitty would like to think that they were soul mates.

Sarah would like to disagree.

Sarah would like to think that she's straight.

Kitty would like to disagree.

And that's how they were: in silent, unknown argument and feud, alone and lost in the mess than was 'more than friends', but still not quite anything more.

Because Sarah still reckoned she liked cock, and cock exclusively.

And Kitty was stubborn enough to ruin her life like this.

Because Sarah was beautiful, and so beautiful curled up in bed, because the two had slept together, but in a best friends kind of gal pals sleepover way as opposed to some big lesbian escapade.

Sarah was beautiful, nevertheless.

And Kitty was dying inside.

It was five, in the morning that is, and sleep was not something Kitty possessed, and throughout the course of the past few minutes, she'd found herself rather accustomed to gazing rather pathetically at Sarah's face: all fluttery eyelids and absent minded smiles - the beautiful things that she would never be quite aware of.

And like this, it was okay for Kitty to stare, because Sarah didn't have to know, because like this, it was okay for Kitty to fall for her, because Sarah would never know, because like this, they seemed eternal, lost, but satisfied in compromise: Sarah didn't have Brendon, and Kitty didn't have Sarah in the way she wanted, but they had this bed and the early hour and enough thoughts to last a lifetime.

Kitty had thought about just _kissing_ Sarah far too many times: perhaps even so many that it might ruin her completely, but Kitty was okay with that, because if she was going to die, it was going to be like this, with Sarah and this stupid fluttery feeling in her heart, and this mess in her head, because she quite honestly couldn't imagine a world without it.

A world without her.

And suddenly Kitty was back at Patrick's birthday party, and Sarah and Ryan were meeting for the first time, and Brendon was suddenly public enemy number one, and Sarah was crying, and Kitty was dragging her outside; that was how things had really started, she reckoned, but of course, she could never really know.

So for this bed, and this early hour, and these stupid fluttery feelings, she had little more than Brendon Urie's asshole nature to thank, not that she reckoned that she would; she wasn’t like Sarah, she couldn't just _forgive_ people, although Kitty reckoned that Sarah could fucking _kill_ her, and still she'd say thank you afterwards.

That was all kinds of healthy and a million times fucked up, but still in the five am blue grey morning light from half open curtains, Kitty smiled, and let it be, because Sarah looked beautiful right now: she _always_ did.

And with time, Sarah shuffled, moving in the sheets as morning came, and her whole world began to wake up, smiling a little at Kitty as she caught her gaze, but of course never expecting nor anticipating the truth in the way Kitty looked at her.

It was a wonderful kind of oblivion, and perhaps even one that Kitty could revel in, because it couldn't help but amuse her as to how someone could know so much and another could know so little about something that concerned the both of them, but emotions were complex; she knew that, emotions would always be, and she would always know that.

"Morning." Sarah smiled up at her, moving in the sheets so she was in more of a sitting position beside Kitty, "you look kind of tired, did you not sleep well last night?"

Kitty laughed a little, shaking her head, "it's not that, I have some serious under eye bag game here, so shut up, stop insulting my decaying, ugly face, and-"

"It's not an ugly face." Sarah was perhaps far too quick to protest. Kitty raised her eyebrows in response. "What? It's _not_ an ugly face, there's no way around that _fact_."

"Sure, Sarah, sure, it's nowhere near as pretty as yours, that's what I'm saying, okay?" Kitty shook her head as she took another glance at the time: something closer to seven in the morning.

"Sure, but you're pretty, you _really_ are." And Sarah _meant_ it: there was no doubt about that, but there was so much doubt about everything else and the mess the two of them were in, because things could never quite be simple or easy, could they?

"Alright, fine, but you're prettier-"

Sarah shook her head firmly, utterly stubborn and deadset on her beliefs, "you're cute as hell, Kitty, _anyone_ can see that, and... it's... I don't know, it's stupid that you think otherwise."

"I have my reasons." And Kitty did, in the form of the perfect _straight_ girl sat beside her.

"What reasons?" Sarah retorted, eyes widening a little.

"They're good ones, I promise you, but I couldn't even try to explain them to you if I _wanted_ to."

"And why don't you want to?"

Kitty sighed, shaking her head, "maybe you'll find that out some day."

Sarah grinned, taking it like a challenge, "maybe I will."

Kitty just shook her head, and rolled over, attempting to get some form of sleep for the first time that night.

-

At first, Lindsey had been apprehensive, unable to believe the duo in what they'd done regarding the fire arm and a certain maths test that had sparked quite a panic, but she was indeed dying of laughter at Gabe's wonderful 'what is algebra?', and Frank stopped listening around the point that Lindsey declared that she was going to get that tattooed.

He wandered off into the kitchen: originally in search of just a drink, but happening upon much more - perhaps a certain photo album left out on the kitchen counter.

And Frank had managed to ignore it and respect Lindsey's privacy for a good ten seconds, before the drink was all but forgotten, and his hands were practically ripping the album open, leaving him giggling a little at the first picture: Lindsey as a teenager, perhaps seventeen or so, donning some beautiful, awe inspiring classic nineties shit fashion.

He paused for a moment, wondering just what Lindsey would say if she walked in, and just how much Jamia would laugh when she saw this picture; Frank took a photo with his cellphone and solely for the latter of the two reasons.

And then, he turned the page, absent mindedly flicking through many more awkward photos of teenage Lindsey: perhaps with friends, perhaps alone, but all equally as amusing, however, he finally happened upon a group shot that meant something - Lindsey was older in this one, but it wasn't Lindsey he was focused on, but the boy beside her.

The photo was taken five years ago, when Frank was _twelve_ , and the boy in question, _Gee_ , was twenty, and that really did put things into perspective, but god, he looked so different, yet so similar: so cute, so him, but so more innocent, with a dumb fringe, and a little chub, and far more modest clothing, for a start, and no make up, which was one hell of shock, to say the least.

And then Frank turned the page, and found one of Gee alone, this one, he presumed, taken by Lindsey, and with a boy Frank didn't recognise stood in the background, looking at Gee like he was the most beautiful thing he was, and Frank did agree, because even then, with an awkward not quite right, not quite _his_ , too teenage, too dorky, fucking too _masculine_ kind of appearance, he still was.

And Frank smiled, and wondered what had happened to that boy in the background.

And blushed a little as he turned the page, his eyes widening as he realised it was another photo taken by Lindsey, but this time, Gee was closer to the boy - they were kissing, in fact, and Gee looked like he had everything right there, and Frank couldn't help but wonder just what had gone wrong.

And laughter, as Lindsey herself, stood before him, raising her eyebrows as she glanced down at the album. "Ever heard of privacy?" 

"Sorry- I.." Frank blushed, rushing to close the album, but Lindsey stopped him, flickering the page over to another picture of the two boys again.

"It's fine; I shouldn't have left it out, I guess, but I guess this is you getting jealous of your boyfriend five years ago."

"This is me trying not to be." Frank laughed a little, "I'm just... the guy looks at him like Gee means the world to him, and Gee looks at him the same way, and I just... what on earth could possibly go wrong? I'm scared that'll go wrong with me and Gee, you know?"

"It won't," Lindsey was certain, too certain perhaps.

"How do you know?"

"Frank, do you know who that boy is?" Frank shook his head, "that's Bert five years ago; he looks different, but he hasn't changed personality wise all that much," and Frank looked closer, and dear fucking _lord_ , she was right.

"So w-what... t-they _dated_? What t-the h-hell happened? If it all looks so fucking _perfect-"_

"Things aren't always the way they seem in photographs, Frank."

"He never mentioned this to me, I-"

"It's complicated, Frank, it happened half a decade ago, it's-"

But Lindsey was too late, as the back door slammed, Frank on the other side of it: headed to the only place in the world he had left, the one perhaps he didn't quite hate, not _yet_ anyway.

-

Patrick sat alone in the corner of the room, watching all wide eyed as Ryan spoke to Brendon and the words faded out into a whole lot of fuzzy nothingness around his ears; he had better things to think about, like the boy sat beside him, the boy he saw, the boy that wasn't there, the boy that couldn't be there, the boy he _had_ to believe in, the boy who was the only thing he had left.

"You're not okay." It was a statement, not a question, because Pete just _always_ knew, and perhaps Patrick was a whole lot more thankful for that than he let on, but maybe that was okay, because Patrick wasn't exactly in the best of places, and he never had been after all.

"I know." Patrick whispered, keeping his voice low to avoid Ryan and Brendon overhearing, because at this point, he was pretty damn sure that they'd both completely forgotten about his presence entirely; he could sneak off and disappear completely with far too much ease, and the idea of that had always been far too appealing.

"So, make yourself okay, get out, sort your head out, come on." Pete got to his feet, his figure folding as he did so, "come on," he repeated, holding his hand out to Patrick, who sat there in stunned silence for a moment, before taking his hand, and following the dead boy out of Ryan's backdoor, because it wasn't like Patrick was fucked up enough was it?

Pete always knew how to make him feel better though, and he could seriously count on that, even if it seemed the most unlikely of circumstances, because Patrick was anything but likely; his whole existence was a clusterfuck of missed opportunities and headaches that just wouldn't go away.

"Come on, let's go to the park, let's get away, let's make this right." Pete smiled at him, holding out his hand once more, and like clockwork, like a chemical reaction in a brain, Patrick followed, taking Pete's hand in his, and ignoring how his grip still felt so empty.

"How could we make this right?" Patrick asked, just a little nervous, because he was holding hands with his dead best friend, what the hell was he even supposed to think?

"By trying." Pete let out a sigh, meeting Patrick's gaze and forcing a smile, "that dream again," he continued, sparking Patrick's interest, "you never finished it, you woke up too early, you never made a choice, you have to finish it, Mikey'll be okay if you do-"

"What do you mean?" Patrick exclaimed, horrified as he began to imagine just what on earth Pete could possibly be suggesting.

"Mikey shouldn't have been thrown into this mess, you need to end this, you need to cut the ties, you need to do it: I'm tying you down, and you're what's keeping me here, because you can't admit it to yourself: you can't let me die - this is what this is, and this is why your head's a mess, Patrick, _me_."

And before Patrick could protest, Pete was holding his hands all too tight, and Patrick was closing his eyes in the park around the corner from Brendon's house, and opening them in the forest he'd evaded for far too long now.

Except this time, for the first time, he was alone; he knew what lay down that path and in turn, a top that hill, but still, he made his way down the path, through clusters of trees and vegetation, and the mess of nature that his _'imagination'_ had concocted, and he tried not to focus upon how real this felt, and how much he felt trapped as tree branches seemed to curl around him.

But soon enough, he reached the hill and the usual spot, and the body, and the black plastic, and the unknown face, and Patrick held his breath as he tugged at it: unready for what he could see, but still never able to expect what lay before him: nothing.

_Nothing_.

No face: no one, just _emptiness_.

No one.

And suddenly, a voice to fill the silence, "you need to do it, you need to fill the spot, you need to fix this, it's the only way you wake up, it's the only way this can work, and you _have_ to understand that."

Patrick shook his head furiously, his eyes widening as the voice, Pete, stepped forward as pressed a _gun_ into his palm.

"Come on: if I can do it then you can." Pete let out a kind of pathetic light-hearted laughter, "it's just a gun, it's just a shot, just fire it at me, it's simple, it's necessary, it's... do it, _please_."

"No." Patrick reiterated, shaking his head to the extent that Pete was pretty sure it was about to tumble right off his shoulders. "I can't, I _won't_ , Pete."

"Then this will never be fixed, then Mikey will never be okay, neither will you, you'll never wake up, do you really want this forest forever? Do you really want this hell forever? You want to wake up, you want to cry, and Ryan's going to make it better, because he always does, and you'll make it through, because you always do, because that's _you_ , Patrick, and you know that."

"No, I don't." Patrick snapped, stepping away from Pete with widened eyes, because, no, _fuck_ , no, he _couldn't_.

"You don't want it, you need to... you know what you need to do, come on I-"

"Why can't you do it, if it's so necessary?" Patrick exclaimed, just willing for to wake up from this hell of a nightmare.

"Because I already have, and you're the one who still believes in my mortality, you're the one tying me down, I hate to say it, but it's true, and it's true as hell." 

And Patrick held the gun tighter in his hand, "I get it now, this is just a dream, this is just my mind fucking with me, this is just..."

"It's whatever you tell yourself, Patrick, but there's one thing for sure, you're not waking up until you do it-"

Just a nightmare, perhaps all of this was, and that's exactly what Patrick told himself as he pulled the trigger on his best friend, tears streaming down his face, as he woke up in the same corner of the same room with Brendon and Ryan having the same conversation, gradually turning into a minor argument.

And in that comfort, he turned to the space beside him, to the boy he knew and relied on, and found the differences: the one thing that would most certainly never be the same.

-


	46. plot twist this fic does have an end its chapter 48

Ray reckoned that sitting at lunch with Gabe Saporta wasn't exactly the highlight of his life, but reckoned that he couldn't exactly be picky here anymore, because okay maybe, he had totally fucked everything up with Mikey, and okay, maybe there was just nothing he could do about that.

It wasn't like Ray _cared_ though, was it, of course, of course, he did, because Ray was all kinds of pathetic, and all kinds of still fucked up about Mikey fucking Way.

Anyway, Ray was sat at lunch with Gabe and Mikey was totally glaring at him from across the hall, but Ray didn't think much of it because it was just Mikey being an ass now that Ray's dick wasn't in his ass.

Ray was kind of glad that he wasn't fucking Mikey anymore, because Mikey was a fucking _bitch_. In fact, Ray was glad that they just didn't speak anymore, and Ray wasn't really one for snubbing or even being mean to other people, but Mikey Way had made himself the exception here.

Ray did miss Frank, though, but if Frank was going to choose Mikey over him then there was very little he could do about that, and he had Gabe's company, even if it was somewhat questionable, and even if the guy never fucking shut up about William Beckett.

Mikey looked a little off though today, and Ray couldn’t escape that, and in much the same way, he couldn't escape worrying, because Ray was certain he _disliked_ Mikey, but still, he couldn't help but care, because that's what Ray did after all; he was much like Sarah in that way, but he most definitely got laid a lot less, which really sucked, to say the fucking _least_.

"Ray, are you alright?" Gabe had followed Ray's gaze across the room to Mikey, and the table he was sat on with Frank, Ryan, and Brendon.

Ray wondered how Brendon had made his way back into that group, but he still remained exiled; perhaps Mikey was just far more stubborn than Ryan, or as there often was, something else was going on that Ray wasn't quite aware of.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ray forced a smile and turned back to Gabe, who was looking at him with nothing less than a highly fucking skeptical glare

"Sure, whatever you say, but you're totally staring at that _Mikey_ kid."

That Mikey kid.

Ray wished Mikey could be just that for him, but things would never work out like that.

And Ray remembered what his brother had told him, and he remembered speaking to Frank about Gee all those months ago, and keeping that secret, and keeping that friendship, but for what purpose, because Frank sat beside Mikey and not him.

And Ray hurt inside a lot more than he'd ever care to let on.

"Come on, _admit it_." Gabe continued, succeeding in making Ray blush like an idiot, and fuck, Ray was so fucking fucked. "Do you _like_ him or something? Is there something there?"

"He's my _ex_." Ray shook his head, his gaze fixated firmly upon the floor.

" _Oh..._ sorry." Gabe trailed off, his gaze drifting elsewhere, as he struggled to fill the silence he'd created.

"It's fine... he's a bitch." Ray turned back to Gabe, watching as the taller boy sat there in silence for a moment, perhaps just contemplating Ray's every word.

"Oh, how so?" And Gabe seemed to genuinely care, but perhaps that was just Gabe's hunger for gossip and nonsense; Ray didn't know, and Ray tried not to care.

"It was a relationship, but it wasn't... he was kind of using me as a distraction or for sex, I don't know: I don't _want_ to know. We used to be best friends, as well, and he's there with my friends, well my ex-friends, because they're on his side or something; I don't even know what he tells them because as far as I know he's too ashamed to even let them know he dated me."

"Closeted as hell?" Gabe raised his eyebrows, because Gabe Saporta didn't actually know an awful lot about Mikey Way.

"No, it's complicated; his boyfriend killed himself quite a few months ago now, you know, Pete... and it really fucked him up, and I can't even remember how it went from that to us, but my dog died and we were comforting each other and then things escalated and everything's a mess now, and it used to be the three of us, best friends, me, Mikey, and Frank, but now Frank's 'sided' with Mikey, I don't know, but we don't speak anymore, and that's really fucked me up, because there was never anything between Frank and I, and I miss him and I miss that friendship, and Mikey fucked that up for me."

"Wow, that's... a mess, don't you think?" Gabe paused, shaking his head in disbelief, because god, he just wished he could help just a little here, "Have you not tried talking to Frank? Like explaining your side of the story."

"Mikey will hate me for 'ruining his friendship with Frank'-"

"Since when did _Mikey_ dictate your fucking life?"

Ray glanced back across the hall at the boy he used to care so much about, and saw his friends laughing, engaged in conversation, as Mikey looked distant, almost out of place with his gaze fixated across the hall and his eyes with a sad kind of look to them.

Ray wanted to ask what was wrong, _still_ , Ray wanted to be there for him, but Mikey didn't deserve that: not anymore, not at all, and Ray found himself forced to keep reminding him of that.

Especially as Mikey looked up and caught his gaze across the hall: the two sharing a look, something that meant something perhaps.

And Ray's phone vibrated in his pocket moments later.

A text from Mikey, the first one in forever, and it felt weird, it felt different, and Ray didn't quite feel so empty:

_'I'm sorry about what I did. Can we talk? Can we fix this_?'

And Ray didn't quite know what to say at all.

-

They're scared: they're only human, after all.

Ray was all heartbeats and words he couldn't quite swallow, and Mikey was all sentences he couldn't quite form and a heart that didn't quite beat anymore, and in a way they were both perfect opposites and perfectly identical.

Because life never made things easy.

And the boys' toilets wasn't much of a spectacular place for it, but it was all they had, besides the words hidden in gazes that they couldn't quite manage to utter to one another.

Because Mikey didn't hate Ray, and Ray didn't hate Mikey, but Mikey thought Ray hated him, and Ray thought Mikey hated him too.

Because life never made things easy, and heart break didn't help, and ex-boyfriends that were supposed to be dead didn't help - _nothing_ helped, and perhaps that made this all the more worthwhile, but perhaps it didn't, because as Mikey met Ray's gaze as he walked in through the door it was like they were in Ray's back yard again, and it was all Alicia Simmons' ass, and croquet, and Frank's secret fixation with Mikey's brother.

But they were stuck in the now and thudding heartbeats and gazes shared for little more than a second, because they were _so_ , so scared, and in fact, Mikey was perhaps twice as scared as he had been throughout his recent nightmares, because it was emotions and the human heart that was to be feared so much more than the kind of demons the brain could concoct.

And Mikey was so sure that Ray was real, and that was what scared him most of all, because if he fucked up with Pete, if he fucked up in his own head, then it held smaller, less important consequences, than if he fucked up with the boy he'd once called his best friend - the boy stood before him, the boy stood in silence.

The two boys stood in silence.

And at one point Ray perhaps chanced a small smile.

Mikey didn't return it.

And in response, Ray pulled out his cellphone, glancing over Mikey's message; the confident Mikey full of words and glares from back out there in the world outside the privacy of this bathroom, and Ray read the message aloud, "'I'm sorry about what I did, can we fix this? Can we talk?'"

Mikey bit his lip, his gaze soon to fixate elsewhere, and let his head drift off into nothingness, because that was a far easier alternative to facing his heart, because Mikey's head was absolutely petrified of the beating vessel inside his chest; the one that dictated far more than it should, the one that had him falling apart because of a boy he once called his best friend, and a boy he once called his boyfriend, and now, a boy he called little more than _'Ray'_.

"Say something." Ray was somewhat desperate at this point, and he himself wasn't at all sure why. "I can't stand this silence between us and neither can you, that's why we're here - to make this right, or to at least try, because I think we can fix this, and we _are_ going to talk."

And then before Mikey knew what he was doing, the words were tumbling from his lips like blood from a wound: sliced open with Ray's words, "I keep seeing Pete: in my dreams, in reality, like a hallucination or something, but Patrick sees him too, and perhaps it's not that simple, perhaps it is, but help me, _please_ , I don't want to be crazy-"

"You're not crazy." Ray responded too before he could think, his eyes widening a little as he finally processed just _what_ Mikey had said to him, because really, Ray had been far more focused upon the simple fact that Mikey _was_ talking to him, as opposed to the actual content of his words. "When did this start? What do you even see him doing?"

"I don't see him a lot, not as often as Patrick- Patrick's back in town now, by the way, but Patrick sees him _all the time_ , but I only see him upon occasion, and I didn't use to, but Patrick reckons me and him are seeing the same Pete and it makes sense, and none of this does, but he keeps trying to talk to me and I don't want him to; I want him to leave me alone, and I want this all to be _okay_ , but that's just too much to ask, isn't it?"

"Mikey, _please_ -" And Ray fucking grew some balls, pulling the boy he once loved into his arms again. "You deserve everything, and this isn't your fault, and... I'm sorry, and... look... you're not going to like the answer here, but it's obvious; you can't let this eat you up inside, you have to just talk to the doctor about this, and maybe they'll give you some pills, and maybe you'll talk to someone, and then maybe you'll get better, maybe that'll be it-"

"What if it's not? I don't want to be crazy, Ray." Mikey was stubborn, as always, but Mikey was also incredibly stubborn when it came to not letting go of Ray, it seemed. "Sorry... I... I missed your hugs... I... you're a good hugger... I feel okay... I'm sorry, I..."

"It's okay." And Ray meant it, because Mikey seemed so much less like the devil when Ray held him in his arms, and it wasn’t even a trick, because perhaps they'd just gotten each other messed up, and perhaps it was a reflection of their own troubles on the other. "You're a good hugger too."

Mikey laughed at that. "I'm all bony and horrible, and lanky, and skinny-"

"No, you're beautiful." Ray smiled, as he finally pulled away. "You're _so_ beautiful."

"I'm sorry- _fuck_... I'm sorry, about everything..." Mikey shook his head in disbelief: far too close to tears for his dignity's liking. "Come back and sit with us, I fucked up, and I fucked up everything for you, didn't I? And we don't talk, and you don't talk to Frank anymore, and he's not just _my_ friend... he's yours too, and fuck, you were always so much more of a better friend than I was - there's no way around that."

"Don't blame yourself - it was both our faults, and we both forgive each other now, don't we, and-"

"I fucking ruined your _life_ , Ray, why do you always forgive me so easily?"

"Because I think you're amazing, I thought you knew that already..."

"No... I didn't..."

And silence, and a smile, and a couple of minutes spare as the pair contemplated the universe, hearts, minds, and everything.

-

Sarah was all emotions in places they shouldn't be and words that didn't quite come out right: a mess, the fucking _definition_ of a mess, but still no one noticed, except her, Kitty, of course, who noticed everything but always said too little.

Perhaps it even worked better that way.

She didn't know otherwise, though, and perhaps she was okay with that, because Sarah was the kind of beautiful she felt like she had to watch from afar, but perhaps things didn't have to be like that.

Perhaps Kitty was just scared.

Perhaps Sarah was too.

But what Sarah was right now was _crying_ , because Sarah's parents were everything she and Kitty despised, and Kitty's house had been her first call of escape, and Kitty had let her in and into a hug, and made her coffee and the two sat down on Kitty's bed, and it was fucking raining outside, as if to set the fucking mood, but Kitty was far more focused on Sarah than the rest of the world.

Because that's how it had always been.

Because that's how it would _always_ be.

And then, the first words since she'd stormed in, because Kitty was all emotions and too little clarity, and Sarah was all tears and choked out sobs as opposed to properly annunciated sentences or even any form of coherence whatsoever.

But communication was important, even if they had to learn that the hard way, as Kitty met Sarah's gaze, and finally broke what seemed like an eternal silence with a simple, perhaps underwhelming, "what's wrong?"

And Sarah nearly laughed at her, because this warranted so much more than that, but still it was just enough, and perhaps if that was all they could deal with right now, then perhaps that was what they could manage, " _everything_ , my parents, my head, my life, _me_ -"

"No, you're not wrong, Sarah, you're amazing, you're _beautiful_." And Kitty meant it so much more than she could ever possibly express.

And Sarah just blushed, laughed, and brushed it off nervously like she did every time Kitty called her beautiful or something of the like, because perhaps somethings would never change. "I'm not, I promise you that. I can't handle my parents anymore, though, I just... they're all... I can't explain it, but I can't deal with them and how they think I should be anymore."

"You shouldn't have to." Kitty's response was immediate, but no less sincere. "They're shitty people if they're making you feel shitty. What happened?"

"They want me to go to university to get a 'proper job', and it's like _no_ , I have this band, I have the comic store, that's enough, that's _me_ , and I'm not moving towns and leaving you and Lindsey and Jamia behind - I'm _not_ doing that."

"If you don't want to, you don't have to."

"I wish it was that simple-"

"It is." Kitty insisted, with a smile, and perhaps a more than platonic shuffle closer to Sarah.

"My parents will probably kick me out if I don't-"

"Then come and live with me." And Kitty was deadly fucking serious, and Sarah couldn't quite believe it at all. "You're always welcome here, I care _so_ much about you, Sarah, and you should fucking know that by now, and you should understand that you're absolutely wonderful and absolutely amazing, and in my opinion, the best person in the world."

"Perhaps you have a bit of a flawed opinion there." Sarah shook her and smiled a little, looking, really fucking _looking_ at Kitty. "Are you serious about me living with you, like _fuck_ , Kitty, that'd be amazing, but I... I don't know..."

"I _want_ you to live with me, Sarah, I think you're amazing and I think you'd be much happier away from those bitchy ass parents of yours." Kitty let out a little laugh at that, and it was one that Sarah mirrored, and the two shared a smile, and somehow nothing felt like something, and the difficult became easy, and conversation became silence once again, but simply because there was nothing else needed between the two of them, at least not for the time being anyway.

Kitty leaned back against the bed, and Sarah lay beside her, the two staring up at the ceiling, and Kitty's head was five in the morning a few days ago now when Sarah had been asleep and so, _so_ beautiful, and she was awake and so, _so_ beautiful now too, and Kitty couldn't escape this.

"So is this a yes?" Kitty finally found herself to be the one to break the silence, and neither of them particularly minded, because this felt right: this felt natural, this felt like them.

"Yeah, I guess so, I'm gonna stay tonight, and we'll see how it goes, and I'll talk to my parents in the morning."

"Okay." And a look that meant too little and too much at the same time.

"Kitty?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you really think I'm beautiful? Like _beautiful_ beautiful?" Sarah blushed a little, shying around the topic, because it seemed so fucking _alien_ to her, because never once in the time that she and Brendon had dated had he said anything quite as sincere to her; she reckoned she was only now getting over him, though, which was one _hell_ of a fucking mess, and it fit right in with her.

"Of course I do - why would I lie to you?" Kitty blushed, brushing it off with an odd kind of nervous laughter that she almost seemed to have stolen from Sarah.

"You wouldn't, it's just... this... us... I feel weird, and I think you're amazing and beautiful too, and thank you for everything and always being there, and god, I'm so cringey right now, but-"

"You're beautiful when you're cringey." Kitty interrupted her, leaning closer, "you're beautiful all the time. _Beautiful_ , it's the only thing I think when I see you, it's the only thing I think even when you're not here: you're so important, you're so amazing, you're so beautiful, you're the most important person in the world, Sarah, and I hate how you don't see that, and you put yourself down and put up with people like Brendon and your parents, and they don't fucking _deserve_ you!"

"You're being too nice to me, Kitty-"

"I'm just telling the _truth_ : the truth from the bottom of my heart, because you should know this, you should know how much you mean to me."

And silence and eye contact and words unspoken and probably better remaining that way.

"You're beautiful too. So fucking beauti-"

And Kitty had her lips against Sarah's before she could finish that sentence, but in the scheme of things, that sentence, that compliment, that explanation, didn't really matter, because deep down, the two had always _known_.

-

"It's a misunderstanding!" Gee was screaming at his boyfriend now, and Bert couldn't help but feel just a little curious as he walked past the living room.

"It's _always_ a fucking misunderstanding with you, isn't it?" Frank shook his head in disbelief, because seriously, fuck Gee, fuck _him_.

"Oh come on, it was- I can't explain, I just-"

"It's ' _nothing_ ' - your fucking words, Gee," Frank shook his head in disbelief, stepping away from his 'boyfriend', "so what the fuck _is_ it? Come on, what the fuck is between you two, because it's not nothing, that’s obvious, and it's not 'over' that's obvious too, and you're not telling me the truth about it, that's even more fucking _obvious_."

"Frank, _please_ , just let me explain, for fuck's sake, you're being unreasonable-"

" _I'm_ being unreasonable?" Frank exclaimed, his face overdramatised, almost as if he was performing for some sort of audience here, and well, in the way that Bert was peering through the crack in the door, he kind of was.

"Yeah, you fucking _are_ , Frank, you're acting like a fucking kid, and it's not fucking helping, because I just want to talk this out and explain, but no, we can't fucking do that, can we, because you have to make a great big mess out of _everything_ , don't you, Frank?" Gee shook his head, backing against the wall and shooting Frank all kinds of looks of disapproval.

"Oh yeah, of course I do, don't I, Gee? I'm not the one fucking _him_ and lying about it, and how it was always nothing, and a drunk thing, and what the _fuck_ , Gee, what the fucking _fuc-"_

"Just let me explain-"

"Go fuck yourself-"

"Are you seriously not going to let me _explain,_ Jesus Christ, Frank, you're acting like a fourteen year old brat-"

"Fucking go for it, Gee, come on, what the fuck kind of bullshit can you come up with this time, because that's all this is about, isn't it? This is a _game_ for you - just how long can you lie to me for? Just how _much_ can you get me to believe? It's like _that_ , I fucking _know_ it is, come on, don't be such a fucking _lying_ coward and admit it to me-"

"It was _years_ ago, Frank-"

"But you and him fucked recently too, didn't you? Because I remember, you lied to me about that too, didn't you?" Frank shook his head in disbelief, almost beginning to just _laugh_ at Gee at this point.

"That's two different things: that was a relationship years ago, and now, now it's just a _mistake-"_

"Do you call me that to _him_? Am I just a mistake to you? How the fuck do you think he feels being that 'mistake', because fucking you in the first place is the only mistake anyone's made here!"

"Why the fuck are you _defending_ him now?" Gee shook his head, completely unable to follow the mess that was Frank's train of thought anymore.

"Because you need to stop being such a fucking bitch whore, Gee, don't you, come on, let that sink in: you're a bitch whore, congratu-fucking-lations!"

"Frank, if you're not going to let me just _explain_ , then fucking _go_ \- the fucking door is there, I can't be bothered to argue with you like this, if you're not going to be rational then I'm not interested, I'm sorry, but it's true... maybe we should talk later?"

"Oh, stop fucking twisting this so I'm the bad guy here-"

"I'm _not_ , Frank, Jesus Christ-"

And Gee stopped mid sentence as the door moved a little, and Bert was revealed.

"Oh for fuck's sake, _you_." Frank narrowed his eyes, his hands clenching into fists.

"Look, seriously, Frank, you've got some shit wrong here, Gee's your boyfriend, I respect that, but you've got to understand that a few years ago he _was_ my boyfriend, otherwise you're just acting like a fucking idiot-"

"I'm not an idiot, Bert, go fucking fuck-"

"Frank, _please_ , just let me fucking _explain_ , god how hard is that for you just to shut up for one goddamn minute before this gets entirely fucked up?" Gee shook his head, taking a step closer to Bert, and holy hell, Frank was so _not_ fucking happy about that.

"Side with him, why don't you? That fucking _asshole_ , you know what's he like and you've said so yourself, but still, of course, I'm the fucking antichrist here, aren't I-"

"Frank, you're just so up your own fucking ass you can't see what the fuck you're doing, just _leave_ , just go before you fuck this up more for us, and you can come back tomorrow and we'll _talk_ it out then, or how about I write out an explanation and text you it, and then you can call me or whatever, and we can talk like that, because this isn't working-"

"Gee, we aren't _fucking_ working, especially when Bert is so far up your fucking ass you just can't see how much of a _whore_ you are-"

" _Get out_." And Gee had just about lost _all_ of his patience at this point, as it was less of a request and more of a demand.

-

Mikey didn't sleep well anymore; he never had ever since Pete had died, and of course, the probably had only worsened when Pete didn't quite seem so dead anymore.

Mikey was nightmare prone; he always had been, but of course, it had never been nearly this bad, and perhaps Mikey was used to it now, and perhaps that wasn't quite as much of a good thing as he made it out to be.

It was darkness every night, and the horrors that lurked in the darkness, well, Mikey preferred not to think of, but of course, they still made permanent residence in his mind.

He didn't dream like Patrick did, though; Patrick was all lucid and fucked up and twisted horror fairytale, whereas Mikey's head was a little more like some kind of fucked up purgatory; monsters and demons, and darkness, everywhere, all just blurs until they got too close, and seemingly never ending, and the truth impending, and a boy with bullet hole, covered in his own blood.

Because that's how Pete was in Mikey's dreams every night, because that's how Pete would always be: there was nothing done to recover the hole in his head, and of course, there was little purpose to it - it wasn't like anyone would glance upon his form again, in reality, that was.

But perhaps Mikey _had_.

But perhaps Mikey was yet to realise that the Pete he had seen with his own two eyes was so much different to Pete he'd knew took residence in his head; the Pete with the bullet hole, and his own blood on his hands, and fingers that trembled - trigger happy perhaps, lived up there.

Whereas the Pete he and Patrick had encountered was nothing like that, nothing like the _real_ Pete... not that 'real' held much meaning anymore, but of course, if this Pete was to be much more than a hallucination, and with them sharing it, it grew just a little too likely for Mikey's liking, then the _real_ Pete would have the bullet hole in the side of his head, and perhaps the alternative - the Pete... but could it be even called Pete anymore?

Mikey hadn't quite yet come to this kind of horrific epiphany that there was more to this mess than he'd once thought, not that he much wanted to ponder upon the hell inside his mind, but who could blame him, and as he lay down in the darkness of his room, the sounds of Bert and Gee arguing over what sounded like cigarettes down the hall faded out into nothingness, as Mikey's eyelids finally closed.

And just like that, they were open again, because in a mind like Mikey's, you could never really sleep, and Mikey had become all too accustomed to the sleepless nights and the horrors of his mind that stayed very _firmly_ there, but of course, with Pete, it seemed that a certain horror had crept out, and this fucked Mikey up so much more than he could possibly care to admit.

He opened his eyes to a vast expanse of inky blackness, and expected nothing less, and wanted nothing more, content with simple silence and nothingness for the rest of the night, even for the rest of his existence, perhaps, but Mikey's mind felt prey to boredom far more than Mikey did, and soon the scene illuminated, with what looked to be candlelight.

And Mikey couldn't move for the life of him, and perhaps it would indeed be the life of him that the air becoming quicksand around him could cost him, as suddenly the environment: the empty expanse, seemed a whole lot less empty.

_Footsteps_.

And Mikey's mind was playing _tricks_ on him, or at least that was what he liked to keep himself believing all this time, because either his head was ahead and knew what was coming, or it was out to get him, or perhaps both, and perhaps that was the scariest reality of all.

And perhaps it was best if Mikey just simply didn't think, and shut this all out, but it didn't really seem like much of an option at all, as the footsteps turned into a figure in the darkness, illuminated in the candlelight, and Mikey knew it was him before he even saw his face, because it was always him.

So much blood this time: the hole in his skull perhaps even more ghastly than he'd remembered it, not that Mikey had really wanted to, and Pete _smiled_ at Mikey, because he always did, and Pete never said much, as opposed to the Pete without the hole in his head.

Mikey reckoned the Pete without a hole in his head was the good one of the two, and the one covered in blood was little more than an apparition that haunted his nightmares, and something Mikey would grow out of some day, because he did, grow out of everything that was; people changed, did they not?

But this felt all too permanent as Pete stepped closer and smiled once more, and it wasn't even a creepy smile, but a genuine one, just one that happened to come from the face of a man covered in his own blood.

"I'm sorry."

They were unexpected, and two simple words at that, and the two had remained in silence for too long here; Mikey even unsure if he possessed any verbal ability in whatever plane of fucked up existence he fell into as his subconscious took hold.

"I'm sorry." Pete repeated, almost as if Mikey couldn't quite hear him.

"It's- it's _fine_." Mikey smiled, but perhaps it was more of a grimace.

"It's not, but I am going to fix it... I'm already fixing it... everything's okay, Mikey... I promise you that."

"How? What do you _mean_?" Mikey stressed, his heart beat picking up as Pete's words seemed all the more sincere, and in turn, all the more unnerving, because this one didn't quite seem so in Mikey's head tonight.

"You see me in the day time too don't you?" And Mikey found himself nodding before he could think. "Yeah, I know you do. It's going to be okay."

And Mikey thought of the day time Pete as the one in his head faded away, and he found himself left in darkness again, and suddenly it was two forty six in the morning and Mikey was sweating into his sheets and thinking of Pete.

His mind was focused on little but what Pete had just said to him, the Pete with the bullet hole in his head, that is, and in turn, and the boy who looked like him; the boy without the bullet hole... the boy who hadn't killed himself, _yet_.

-


	47. Bob Bryar's Peppa Pig Mug

He was gone, and it meant everything but nothing at the same time, and Patrick's head was about to explode, and Ryan just simply didn't know what to  _do_.

Because Patrick was shaking and being anything but cooperative in Ryan's attempt to extract some sort of viable information from him, or perhaps even  _any_  kind of response to the question, 'are you okay?'.

It was a stupid question, of course, because Patrick evidently wasn't, but in turn, Ryan quite evidently wasn't prepared to believe that.

Because Ryan was holding onto Patrick like he was the only thing he had left, and even at times, it wouldn't be quite so stupid to wonder if Ryan needed Patrick as much as Patrick needed him, if not  _more_.

Because that was very much a possibility too, and it was only reinforced as the two sat on Ryan's kitchen floor, and Patrick's legs continued to shake, and tears continued to stream down his face, and Ryan remained helpless and silent.

There was little he could do, and he  _knew_  that, but knowing something and accepting it were two entirely different things, and of course this did indeed ensure that Ryan was something like insane, but for Patrick he reckoned he would be.

And this wasn't even a  _romantic_  thing, because Ryan was stuck in this odd mess of feelings regarding Brendon Urie that he was really just trying  _not_ to think about, whereas, he just  _cared_  about Patrick so fucking much, and it was almost like he  _needed_  to care or something, which was absurd in its entirety.

Because this was just  _friendship_ , but Patrick mattered more than the entire universe did, and Ryan could only suddenly begin to realise as to why Brendon might have had more than a little trouble with that; Ryan reckoned that he too had a little trouble with that, but he didn't blame himself, so why on earth did he blame Brendon?

Because he didn't think, and he called Brendon the selfish one but Ryan Ross didn't think at all, he only  _cared_ : it was all emotions and an absolute abundance of logic, and a mess and a question that Patrick still hadn’t answered, but one that he didn't need to, because Ryan already knew, and he reckoned that he'd  _always_  know, because it was like this, and it  _would_  be like this from the very day that Pete put that gun to his head.

Ryan wondered if Pete knew that, or even suspected this as he did so.

Ryan remained in silence, and wondered if the Pete Patrick kept seeing was at all conscious, because of course, he couldn't be, because of course it was just the power of suggestion and a hole to be filled in each boy's mind, and one hell of a fucking mess throughout.

Ryan wondered if Pete would  _ever_  know.

And Ryan had just as much trouble accepting the truth as Patrick, because in a way, he really could sympathise with the shorter boy, but in a way that he'd never even consider letting slip to anybody.

Especially not Brendon.

Even with Brendon starting to open up to him, because Ryan reckoned it was his turn to be the hypocrite and the fuck up now, and say nothing as his best friend continued to shake and sob; he just let it happen, and reassured himself that there was little he could do, but it wasn't enough and it would never be enough, and he knew that too, he knew it all too well.

And Ryan yearned to know just what kind of hell went on inside Patrick's head, but in exactly the same way, he didn't dare even consider it, because he wouldn't wish this kind of mess on anyone, but still it had befallen the one boy who'd been nothing but kind and nothing but caring to everyone and everything, because that was how life worked, because fate played games, and it most certainly didn't play fair.

"What is it?" Ryan finally found himself asking after what was certainly something like twenty minutes of silence and sobs, and heavy breathing on Patrick's part, and thoughts Ryan didn't dare to even imagine.

" _Him_."

And that was enough, and too little at exactly the same time, and Ryan could do little but accept it, because he could do little more than relish in his fate, and the mess that surrounded him, because if he couldn't fight it, then he had to  _accept_ it.

"What's he done?" And he continued to ask questions that perhaps didn't warrant answers; the simple kind of nonsense that didn't belong in anyone's mind, but the simple kind of nonsense that was the only thing on his mind.

"Nothing."

And Ryan's gaze hit the wall, and he buried his head in his own immoralities, and he thought of every time he'd screamed at Brendon and thought of every reason, and he thought of everything Patrick had done, and every mess he'd made, and the fact that Ryan had never once gotten angry with him.

And in turn, he imagined Brendon in Patrick's place, and he knew within an instant than he would be nowhere near as silent, and nowhere near as complacent, and nowhere near as forgiving, and nowhere near as accepting. In fact, he'd be screaming, and he couldn't quite figure out where the hell the difference had come from.

Because Brendon and Patrick were very much alike: two people who cared about Ryan a lot, and too people he cared about just as much - it was simple, so fucking simple, but so fucking complicated, and he imagined Brendon and Patrick in each other's places and just what the hell this mess in his head could possibly mean.

"Say it straight." And Ryan's head had snapped, like the flick of a switch, like nothing, and like everything, and  _fuck_. "Just say it, don't fucking be cryptic or shitty, just fucking  _say_  it, Patrick, come on."

"Say what?" Wide eyes: startled even, and a slightly parted a mouth from a boy that both didn’t expect and didn't deserve this.

"You fucking  _know_  what, come on, Patrick, just what the  _fuck_  is going on in your head? Why the fuck are you crying like this? And what the fuck is Pete, because you kind of know, don't you? But you don't tell anyone, do you? Because this is you, Patrick, the observer, you know  _everything_  but tell no one, and you think it's your saving grace, but it's little more than your Achilles’ heel, because people get tired, Patrick, people get fed up, and people want answers.  _I'm_  tired, Patrick, so are you going to explain this or not?"

-

"So that's it!" Sarah exclaimed, falling down on Kitty's sofa in a manner so clumsy that the older girl definitely wouldn't have tolerated if she wasn't so fucking head over heels for her.

"That's it? That's what?" Kitty asked, raising her eyebrows a little as she shut the front door behind Sarah, her eyes widening a little they fell upon the backpack thrown to the side at the doorstep - Sarah's backpack.

"That's  _it_." Sarah repeated herself, "like you said. I fucking sorted this shit out, and I told my parents everything, and they weren't happy, and I wasn't either so, that's it, this is it, I live here now, if that's okay?"

"That's okay." Kitty repeated, still a little wide eyed, because with Sarah she'd expected some sort of fucked up mess and at least one more than platonic thought about Brendon Urie, but it seemed like God or someone was on her side for the first time in her life.

"So, I told them I like girls too, and  _you_  in particular, and that I want to be in our band and not some shitty office job, and my mum looked like she'd been shot, and it was kind of funny actually, because I kind of actually  _hate_  them, like so much, and I mean, like seriously, thank you, it's better like this, or at least I hope so."

"I'm proud of you." Kitty added with a smile, finally growing the guts to sit down beside Sarah. "Seriously, Sarah, you're amazing, I know it's hard to tell those kind of parents that you're your own person, especially when they can be so damn stubborn about who they think you're supposed to be."

"Yeah, well, fuck them now, because I'm me, and you're you, and that's kind of all that matters now, and I totally haven't even spoken to one fuckboy this week-"

"Oh my  _god_ , Sarah, are you being serious here, because if so, I'm so fucking proud of you getting over this damned addiction to fuckboys!" Kitty exclaimed, perhaps over exaggerating her words a little, but if it made Sarah smile like it did, who the fuck could blame, because when Sarah motherfucking  _smiled_ , the world didn't quite seem like such a bad place anymore, at least not in Kitty's eyes.

"Fuck off, oh my god, I'm not that bad, am I?"

Kitty narrowed her eyes in response, "you dated Brendon Urie, and for  _weeks_ , like seriously, that shit was bad, Sarah, absolutely fucking  _tragic_ , and you know it, but you just don't want to admit it, do you?"

"Fuck off, I've improved as a human being by now at least, haven't I?" Kitty looked unconvinced, "look, I mean, I was totally badass when I told my parents what I thought of them, and it's going to be totally great, us, I mean."

" _Us_." Kitty repeated, shaking her head a little, "now tell me, Sarah Orzechowski, just what the fuck does that mean?"

"Us?" Sarah raised her eyebrows a little.

"Don't go all straight girl on me, here, goddamn,  _us_. Us, for fuck's sake,  _us_ , the two of us! Kitty and Sarah and that kiss and this is a one bedroom place, double bed one bedroom and there's two of us now...  _us_ , so fucking explain that to me, will you?"

"Oh I thought I'd just sleep on the sofa...." Sarah trailed off, before bursting into laughter, "fuck, I'm joking, oh my god,  _Kitty_ , I totally- I totally have this  _thing_  for you, and I totally want to kiss you all the time, ever when it's annoying, because you're just that great, you know?"

"Fuck you, Sarah, oh my  _god_ , I swear to fucking Jesus, you gave me a heart attack there, for fuck's sake!" Kitty exclaimed, rolling her eyes in disbelief as she leaned into Sarah's side a little.

"Stop overreacting, I'm just joking, Kitty." Sarah smirked, pulling her knees up to her chest and grinning into nothingness, because damn, Kitty was most certainly not the only love struck one here.

"So,  _us_..." Kitty continued, blushing a little as she spoke, because fuck, she was so fucking fucked, and this was technically just a band of lesbian couples now, oh my god, they were so fucked if they ever broke up, like seriously.

"Us?" Sarah raised her eyebrows, grinning a little, and mostly out of nerves, because she could joke all she wanted, but she was still just as scared as Kitty, and perhaps even more so, because it wasn't like she had an excess of experience in the matters of...  _gal pals_.

"Yeah, us, what are we? Are we like girlfriends now?" Kitty continued, exhaling loudly as she did so, because fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckedy, fuck, which was exactly what she wanted to do with Sarah right now, but they kind of had to clarify a few things first.

"Do you want to be? Now come on, you gotta ask me properly." Sarah grinned, a blush hugging her cheeks and absolutely  _refusing_  to let go.

"Fuck off, it's not like I'm proposing to you-"

"Not yet you're not." Sarah giggled a little.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Shut up, and ask me out then, Kitty, I'm getting tired here, you know? I haven't got all day." Sarah exclaimed, despite the fact that she was of course more than rearing to spend all of her life, let alone all day with Kitty, because you know what? It just kind of made  _sense_ , and fuck, fuck everything, because Sarah reckoned she hadn't smiled like this in a long fucking time, and that had to mean something, didn't it?

"Okay then, Sarah Orzechowski, do you want to be gal pals? Do you want to be girlfriend, like seriously I'll order take out if you say yes, like look at all the incentive here, also since you kind of fucked off your parents big time, you will kind of be homeless if you say no, so like, think about this one, okay?"

"Are you serious about the take out?" Sarah asked, her eyes widening a little.

"Deadly, fucking  _serious_." Kitty repeated, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Ooh, can we get pizza, because I feel the spirit of pop punk in my veins today?"

"Depends what you answer my question with." Kitty continued, grinning a little, "because I'd only ever order pizza for my girlfriend, you know, like anything else, fuck you, not happening."

"Okay then, for the pizza." Sarah grinned, pressing a kiss to Kitty's cheek. "I'll be your girlfriend, come on, get your phone out, you've got pizza to order."

-

"So what exactly  _is_  algebra?"

Bill shook his head at his boyfriend in something like disbelief; the two sat on Gabe's bedroom floor with his laptop between them, and a rather odd google search history to their name.

"You actually don't know what algebra is, do you?" Bill shook his head in disbelief, as he caught sight of what was actually the world's most awkward nod on Gabe's behalf.

"I know it's to do with maths, yeah, but, otherwise, I honestly have no fucking idea - is that bad?" Gabe continued, a blush hugging his cheeks as he spoke, and Bill wasn't at all sorry.

"Yeah, Gabe, that's really fucking bad, you're actually a failure in life, fuck you, buddy." Bill grinned, pulling the laptop closer to him and googling a simple, yet necessary 'algebra'. "It's not that important though, I mean, if you don't want to do anything mathematical or science-y, then, yeah, you probably won't need it that much."

"I have no idea what I want to do with my life." Gabe answered honestly.

"Same to be honest." Bill added, clicking on a website detailing a brief introduction to algebra. "But seriously, how have you survived this long without finding out what  _algebra_  is? I swear that's actually all they teach you in high school."

"I don't listen, do I?"

"Oh well, who's the bad bitch now?" Bill rolled his eyes, leaning into his boyfriend's side and grinning like a motherfucking idiot, but finding some sort of comfort in that fact, because they were happy like this, they really were, and that mess with Bert had seriously been a mistake, but still, Bill didn't  _hate_  Bert, of course he didn't - perhaps he should, but perhaps it just didn't matter.

"Fuck off." Gabe let out a sigh, his mind in much the same place as his boyfriend's.

"You know, Travie, says you're an idiot-"

"I don't give a fuck what Travie says, because I'm a bad bitch as we've already established." Gabe continued, leaning in to kiss Bill, but the shorter boy wasn't interested.

"Travie's my friend, don't be a dick about Travie, Travie's fucking cool." He continued, only joking of course, because he kind of didn't want to get kicked out of the only home he had, you know?

"I think I'm cooler." Gabe added, and the sincerity in his tone was enough to actually  _kill_  Bill, because god, his boyfriend was a major fucking dork, oh dear.

"Sure, you are, babe, whatever you fucking say-"

"Don't 'babe' me, you ass." Gabe continued, rolling his eyes, and pressing a kiss to Bill's cheek. "Babe," he added, just for good measure, of course, or just because he really was a major fucking asshole.

"Fuck you." Bill shook his head, turning back to the laptop momentarily: algebra long abandoned in favour of shameless dorky flirting, because  _yeah_ , maybe Gabe Saporta could survive without a complex understanding of algebra.

"Yeah, babe, I'd like to." And Gabe reckoned he probably did deserve slapping for that, but thankfully, Bill was just too nice to him for his own good.

"Gabe?"

"Yeah?"

"You know the whole thing with Bert, like I don't want to upset you or start anything, I just want to apologise and maybe talk about it a little, because we probably should be clear on what's going on inside each other's heads."

"Mmm..." Gabe continued, shutting the laptop lid and turning his attention to Bill fully. "It's fine, there was an argument, we were broken up, I don't think of you any differently because of that-"

"No, it's not that, it's kind of different, it's do with him as a person, like I hear a lot about him, I think we all do, but I'm kind of  _worried_  about him, and I know that sounds bad, because it kinda does, but hear me out here, okay?" Bill continued, all wide eyes and pleasing, fucking  _begging_  that things didn't fuck up again because he seriously reckoned that he couldn't deal with that at all.

"Okay." Gabe answered him as if they were in some shitty teen romance involving terminal illness that's totally overrated and written by an overrated dickhead, who seriously isn't anything special, like why do people care so much about this, it's literally every cliché?

"Well, he's... he's kind of fucked up, I mean, you could probably gather that already, but like, I mean, I'm worried about him, because like he doesn't let people in and he doesn't trust people, and he spoke about his family a little, and it wasn't good with them, I know that, but there's definitely something else there, and I feel like people don't give him a chance and they don't care, and I... I don't know what to do, because I know that he's a toxic person in some ways, but he is  _still_  a person, and I don't think I should spend much time with him, but I want be sure that he's alright, because I feel like he's not in a good place mentally right now, if you know what I mean?"

Gabe nodded after a moment, his gaze fixated elsewhere, but his mind focusing on upon every word, "yeah, I mean it's good that you care about him still, that just shows that you're a decent human being, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Bill nodded, blushing a little, "do you reckon I should talk to Gee about it or something? But I wouldn't really know what to say, because I don't have any solid  _proof_ , just a feeling, you know, but like I really feel that it's right, you know?"

Gabe nodded, he didn't know, but he trusted his boyfriend enough to nod regardless. "Talk to Gee if you think it's a good idea, I don't really know the situation, I'm sorry, but I want to make sure that you're happy and that everything's okay?"

"Okay." And there went that goddamn shitty teen cliché of an asswipe novel, which isn't even that sad, I'm sorry, okay he died, been there done that, to be honest. "I just love you a lot, Gabe, you know?"

"I... I..." And what felt like seven heartattacks at once. "I love you too, a lot, or something like that, you know what I mean? Don't you, oh my god? Fuck, I just... I...  _Bill_... I stop making me blush, stop looking at me like that, I'm going to die, I just-"

"Gabe, I highly doubt that you're going to die-"

"Fucking fight me, Bill, fucking  _fight_  me."

"I'd rather kiss you instead, but if you insist-"

And needless to say, Bill did not finish that sentence.

-

A figure in the darkness of the room: one Mikey couldn't quite distinguish - it may be real or simply a figment of his imagination, but what did it matter anymore?

Mikey knew exactly who it was before it had even approached him, and Mikey was even as idiotic as to call out to the figure, with a simple, yet heart-breaking, "Pete?"

The figure seemed to freeze at that, and Mikey took this moment to remind himself that this was of course all in his head, as dreams tended to be, despite how real, and despite how haunting this one always intended upon being.

"Mikey?" The figure mimicked his tone, stepping closer, so the two were inches apart, and  _fuck_ , this was so real, so goddamn real, and Mikey couldn't lie to himself about that, but he  _had_  to, because this wasn't real, and he was determined to stay sane, because he knew exactly what kind of state Patrick was in, and as much as he cared for Patrick, he knew that he most definitely didn't want to empathise with him.

"Hey." Mikey uttered as Pete smiled at him, well, in the lowlight, at least it looked like a smile, and perhaps it was better if Mikey just thought of it as such, because if it wasn't, perhaps things would be  _so_  much more complex, and Mikey was unsure as to whether he could even fathom dealing with that at all.

"Hey." Pete mimicked him once more, the smile widening as he did so, and silence passing between them, as Mikey's heart thudded like a bass drum in his chest.

"What does all of this mean, Pete? Why do I keep seeing you? What's going on-" Mikey was cut off, as Pete leapt straight into a response.

"Because you miss me, and I'm what your mind  _wants_  to see, it's like Patrick, really, but not quite so, and in fact, I'm pretty much all just in your head, Mikey, so you could stop seeing me whenever you want, but you  _don't_ , deep down, you don't, and we both know that, because now we both know that it's the only reason why we're having this conversation." Pete paused, perhaps to catch his breath, but of course, Pete wasn't real, Pete wasn't  _breathing_ , was he? "This means that you're upset, and that's... but I don't want this, and neither do you, we need closure, and you need to move on, and you should give Ray a second chance, because if you stop needing me, then I won't be here anymore-"

"Ray can't  _replace_  you-" Mikey protested, all wide eyed at what Ray was suggesting.

"That's not what I'm saying, but it's exactly what I'm saying... you know what I mean?" Pete continued, his words heavy, as such.

"No."

Pete pulled his lips into a small smile in response. "Let yourself be happy, Mikey, let yourself be happy with Ray, please let this be the last time we see one another,  _please_ , I don't want to know that you're hurting like this, because when you hurt, I hurt, and-"

"You're not  _real_ , Pete, you said so, yourself! How can you hurt?" Mikey exclaimed, his words growing fast paced and anxious.

"I'm not real, I'm inside your head, yes, but inside your head, I  _am_  real, I'm real right now, but I'm not when you wake up, and there's a difference, but you don't see me when you're awake anymore, do you?"

"How did you know?" Mikey paused, taking a moment to think this over, because much like, well,  _everything_ , it didn't make much sense.

"I'm inside your head, I'm a part of your subconscious: I know what you know." Pete explained, if this was even Pete at all, and only then did it strike Mikey that he was quite literally talking to himself there. "But you shouldn't be seeing me: I shouldn't be here, and I won't be when you're happy, when you've moved on, and it's not my place exactly to tell you who to date, but you want to give Ray another chance, and it will make you happy, and I want you to be happy, Mikey, perhaps I even  _need_  you to be happy."

"But if you're a part of me, then isn't that... does that not mean that if I'm sad... you're..."

"I just want to be happy, Mikey, I want  _us_  to be happy, and we can do that now, can't we?" Pete smiled once more, but it was the most heart-breaking smile, and the words that followed it ensured as such, "just forget about me, Mikey, and then everything will all be okay."

"Pete, I-"

"When you wake up, I want you to call him, I want you to meet him somewhere, I want you to talk about your feelings, I want you to smile, I want you to kiss him, I want you to be happy, I want us to be happy, because then, I think that everything will be okay."

Mikey nodded, before pausing, "what about Patrick? Are you in his head too?"

"No, that's... a 'different' Pete as to speak, and I'm not in your head, I am a part of your head, and that Pete is a part of Patrick's head, but that's the Pete Patrick knows, and the Pete Patrick needs, it just happened that you needed and therefore saw the very same version of me at the same time... you're not insane, Mikey."

"Yet my own head is telling me that."

Pete smiled a little, "yeah, but I know you better than anyone, so promise me something, talk to Gee as well? He cares about you, and he's really worried, and you can't just ignore him, okay? Of course, put yourself first, Mikey, but when you've sorted that out, then sit down and explain what you want to him."

"I will. I promise." Mikey added, and he  _meant_  it, because somehow, this all meant so much, and Mikey hadn't a clue why, because this was 'just another dream', but in reality, it was  _anything_  but.

And with that, the scene faded, and Mikey found himself in bed, light streaming in through the windows,  _fuck_ , just a dream, but so real, so fucking real.

He reached for his cellphone, the device displaying nine forty six on the screen as he unlocked it, and found it open on the notes app, which was certainly unusual.

The note had been created a few hours prior, at about three in the morning, and was relatively brief in nature, with a simple:

_'Keep your promise, Mikeyway. x'_

And Mikey didn't have much time to question the nature of the note, before a message appeared from Ray at the top of his screen.

' _Good morning, Mikeyway. x'_

-

As Mikey made his way into the kitchen that morning, he was immediately hit with a, "we need to talk," which was kind of intimidating on its own, but when he actually caught sight of his brother, sat there, with probably the worst bedhead ever, and drinking out of what Mikey was pretty sure was a Peppa Pig mug, like seriously, where the  _fuck_  had that come from.

"Yeah..." Mikey let out a sigh, only then noticing the smudged mess of make up on his brother's face, "have you even slept?"

Gee shook his head, letting out a sigh as he did so, "no... I... I had a fight with Frank, and I... I'm not okay, not really, but he's being a stubborn little shit, and... I... was thinking maybe you could talk to him for me?"

Mikey let out a sigh, but nodded regardless, because no matter how pathetic his brother could be, he most certainly loved him an awful lot, "I will, I promise," Mikey sat down opposite him, "where the fuck did you get that mug?"

"Bob." Gee shook his head, rolling his eyes a little, "he and Alicia and leaving town, they're going to Chicago, I think, and this was Bob's idea of a leaving gift."

"I thought he'd be giving you some weed?" Mikey raised his eyebrows a little, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Yeah, he gave us some too, but Bert decided to take that, and I'm stuck with the shitty mug," Gee laughed half heartedly, and turned to his brother, "talk to me, Mikey, seriously, what's up with you?"

"God, I don't even know where to start, perhaps I... I got a bit fucked up, I guess, and I kept like...  _hallucinating_... Pete? I mean, I don't know, I feel like Patrick isn't helping me, because we're in the same boat, and it sounds selfish, but like, I feel like it feeds off him a little, because I reckon I'm getting better... I only see him in my dreams now. It was a really weird dream last night, like, seriously, he told me to go for Ray, and to talk to you, and to make me happy, and it was... it was odd, especially considering that he  _has_  to just be a part of my imagination."

Gee nodded, not entirely sure what to make of this, but determined to be supportive and there for his brother regardless. "That's some bad shit, Mikey, you promise me that you're gonna tell me about this in future? And if it gets worse, in fact, anything like that that happens from now on, yeah?"

Mikey nodded, pausing for a moment, "so what? You're not gonna yell at me?

"No." Gee smiled, shaking his head, "yelling at Frank fucked everything up, and I can't lose you too, Mikey, you mean too much."

"Oh, come on, Gee, you're all I've got - where would I even  _go_?" Mikey exclaimed, laughing it off a little as he did so.

"You've got Ray." He added, and well, Gee was right, "you should go for Ray, from what I've heard of him, he's a nice guy - Frank talks about him a lot, actually."

"Yeah, Ray's really nice... I mean, Ray's always just been Ray, I remember, almost a year ago now, me Ray and Frank, like the three of us against the world, it was so odd, I was obsessed with Alicia Simmons, and now she's running off with some shitty drug dealer who gave you a Peppa Pig mug as a leaving gift..."

"Bob may be a shitty drug dealer, but he's a good guy, though," Gee added, leaning back in his chair a little, "and Alicia and Bob, they really care about each other, whether that's as friends, or lovers, or something else in between, they work, you know?"

Mikey nodded, "you and Frank work too," he paused, "I'll talk to him soon, I promise, things will be fine. But what are you going to do when Frank leaves school, are you two going to fuck off too?"

"What? And leave you here?" Gee exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief, "not for the fucking world, Mikey, I promise you that."

Mikey smiled, getting up from the table, "I've got to meet Ray in like half an hour, so see you later, okay? I'll tell you when I've sorted things with Frank, although, I'm pretty sure he'll send you at least seven apology texts before I can even get one in."

Gee grinned, tapping his fingers against the Peppa Pig mug, "yeah, something like that."

-


	48. and it ends!!!!!!!

Because Patrick's head was all this or that, and images that didn't fit into the bigger picture: details never overlooked, and far too much attention paid, and in short a mess, and a mess that needed fixing, cleaning up, so to speak.

Patrick was the silence amongst the screaming, stood alone, in the middle of everything and everyone, alone, and waiting, alone and unsure, alone, just so fucking  _alone_.

Because he saw him sporadically now: all at once, or nothing at all, every second, or not for days, and Patrick couldn't trick himself into coping anymore; he wanted out, although he wasn't entirely sure as to what he wanted out of, and in turn, how he could accomplish such a feat,

There was of course a very obvious answer, but one Patrick felt himself too short on daring to consider, however, perhaps that was little but for the better, because he couldn’t be alone like this forever, in fact, he refused to be, but perhaps, like that, he could be anything but alone, and the sky looked so welcoming amidst a rain storm, and an empty house and an unlocked door had served him justice.

Patrick hadn't even  _ran_ : that was the stupid part, he'd just  _walked_ , he'd just  _left_  - this wasn't like before, if Patrick knew anything, he knew that for sure.

And it was out here, in the middle of nowhere, that everything finally seemed to come crashing down on him, because he'd been escaping consequence for far too long, and the figure forever in the corner of his vision could do little but to confirm that, because Patrick knew  _everything_ , too much, in fact, enough to send his head exploding into a million little pieces, enough to drive him truly insane, enough to  _kill_  him, perhaps, which would be perfectly wonderful, because as brave as Patrick may have been, he still wasn't exactly sure that he could manage the aforementioned feat all by himself.

"You're not by yourself." The figure spoke up, stepping closer, and heightening every nerve and cell in Patrick's body as it did so, as  _he_  did so, because the figure was so much more than just  _that_  to Patrick.

"I know." Patrick responded, words sticking in his throat a little as he did so, and his body beginning to shake as rain continued to pour upon them, as they stood in what appeared to be little more than a field, but to the two of them, and to Patrick especially, was the grass and sky at the end of the world.

Patrick paused for a moment and considered every thought, pieced everything together, and glanced up at the sky once more, perhaps even cherishing the cold rain on his face, and the way it made him shiver all over, because it was enough as to feel, as to take him away from this all, but rain wouldn't last forever, and neither would this, and the boy closer to him now than ever before.

Because if anyone had brought Pete closer to him, it was Mikey, and that was simply because Pete had always cared for Mikey more than he would ever care for Patrick, and the two shared that knowledge in a silent, un-acknowledged agreement, because they didn't speak often anymore, and especially not about things like that.

And that was why this had to be done: from the note on the counter top at... home.  _Home_ , it wasn't home, it was anything but - it was Ryan's house, it was the spare room, and his parents didn't let on how much they minded, because Ryan was all too vocal and all too protective, and spending too little time with Brendon, and  _fuck_ , it was happening again, and soon Patrick would turn another year older, another party organised by Ryan Ross himself, another gig from the same band, and another punch to the face, another confrontation, another heart break, because Brendon would always be himself, and he'd always seek company in loneliness, whereas Patrick only sought the capacity to  _feel_.

The silence seemed to numb him, so to speak, and this meant everything, perhaps even to rectify it, but only temporarily, but Patrick couldn't work nor live in the matters lacking permanence anymore, and the situation served to evidence that, as the boy beside him stepped close and smiled.

And every time Patrick closed his eyes, he was back in the forest, and the trees on the horizon seemed to familiar in the storm, and suddenly footsteps out of his control: a move forward, towards the horizon perhaps, the rain growing in strength, as the boy followed without a word.

Because he made it to the treeline, the horizon, with time, and again, Pete said nothing: nothing needed to be said - they'd been here a million times before, and Patrick knew how this played out like the back of his hand, and as he found himself by the road, he left Pete there, and made his way into the forest: the only place he'd ever known, as the foot path faded into nothing, and the trees caved in around him, but by now he'd just about memorised the way to the hill, and just what lay a top it, because he needed to see; he  _always_  needed to see, because only then could things continue, and Pete could drive, and the gas station and the blood could put this all to an end, like he'd wanted, like Pete had wanted.

But Patrick's feet were moving for him at this point, and he was in little position to protest, not that he was particularly inclined to in the first place, regardless of everything, and  _anything_  for that matter.

And as he approached the hill, his head was back at Ryan's house, every time he closed his eyes, and he felt his heart beat heavy in his chest as Ryan unlocked the door, and called out Patrick's name, and his smile faltered at the lack of a response, and he made his way into the kitchen, his hand reaching for the note, the  _goodbye_ , and everything faded into blackness... the words meaning so little and yet so much at the same time.

And Patrick stood there for perhaps minutes in revelation of what he'd done: the irreversible, because he was  _alone_  now, like he'd wanted, because Pete was back at the road, and something deep inside him just seemed to know that he wouldn't be getting out this time, because he doubted this was a dream, and Patrick doubted that he might ever wake up.

And as he reached for the black plastic before him, like he'd done so perhaps a thousand times prior, he found his suspicions little but confirmed, as he laid his gaze upon the body underneath, and found himself staring back into his own, cold, dead,  _eyes_.

-

It's white light and a hospital far too familiar, a phone call Ryan both regretted making and not making sooner, and the mess surrounding him, and the way Brendon didn't look him in the eye anymore, because somehow, deep down, they both knew that this could be little but Ryan's own fault.

Because he shouldn’t have left him, he shouldn't have lashed out, he shouldn't have overreacted; he shouldn't have been the trigger of the bomb, the flick of the switch, because this chaos and destruction was his own creation, even if it had been Patrick who'd penned the note and downed the pills and fell down upon the kitchen floor.

At  _least_ , at the very fucking  _least_ , he wasn't dead, but the word 'coma' was little compensation, and she was nearly here now - his  _mother_ , because Ryan  _had_  called her, and called her all too late, and perhaps she'd been the only one seeing sense throughout all of this, because Patrick was in no state to look after himself, and Ryan knew that now - he'd learned it the hard way.

Brendon still hadn't spoken to him; the two alone in the waiting room, the word 'coma' flashing across both their minds as they struggled to contemplate just what it could possibly mean, because this, fuck  _this_ , was  _never_  how things were supposed to be, but that meant very little now, in the scheme of things, so to speak: a fantasy drowned out amongst realities far too crushing and far too real.

And Ryan's whole head stunk of hospital, bleach, and chemicals, and his mind was a flash of white light, and the note at home, and the intent behind Patrick's actions, and the little boxes of pills that Ryan most absolutely  _shouldn't_  have left hanging around, and in turn, the argument he should have never initiated.

Because this felt an awful lot like his fault, and it felt an awful lot like Ryan was going to be the one screamed at by Mrs Stump when she finally made her way into the hospital building, finally ready to see her son again, but to see him like no mother deserved, and this,  _fuck_ , this was all Ryan's doing, because if he was going to call her, he really should have called her days and weeks ago.

Before it all got so bad, because he shouldn't have believed this whole Pete thing to be anything more than what met the eye,  _ever_ , and he owed Brendon a million 'I told you so's, but they both reckoned that nothing could rectify the situation at hand.

Because Ryan wanted out, he wanted out right now, and he wanted Patrick to wake up, most of all, but the odds weren't in their favour, and in fact, the doctor had said something about Patrick being lucky to be  _alive_ , but still, neither Ryan nor Brendon felt the slightest bit lucky at all.

-

"So, this is..." Ray trailed off, his heart thudding in his chest as he spoke, his gaze fixated upon Mikey's, and his head nothing short of a full blown mess.

"This is..." Mikey continued, glancing around Ray's bedroom; it was far too familiar, but still not familiar  _enough_ , and that was uneasy in Mikey's mind, "this is...  _us_ , I guess? We..." He trailed off once more, the words lodging in his throat, and with that, this was officially deemed the least successful conversation ever,  _officially_.

"Yeah..." Ray exhaled loudly, perhaps leaning a little into Mikey's side,  _perhaps_.

"Yeah..." Mikey repeated, because it was both on their minds, any both knew what they meant, but they were both yet to utter a single word aloud, well, any word of any meaning, that was.

" _Fuck_..." Ray uttered, because that was what it was down to, and Ray didn't even curse that frequently, which was still beyond Mikey's understanding, "I... I don't even know what to say, but you know what I mean, but that's still not good enough, is it?"

"No... it's not." Mikey added, leaning his head onto Ray's shoulder in a totally heterosexual and platonic manner, because there was no homo here at all. "But I don't know what to say and neither do you."

"I know..." Ray let out a bout of nervous laughter at this point; his mind finding little else to do.

"Yeah..." Mikey trailed off, and they were back here again, "I'm not good with words, like, I feel like I can never get across what I mean."

"So..." Ray stretched his arm around Mikey, pulling the skinnier boy closer to his side, "I...  _us_... this... I-"

"Ray, you're like a fucking thirteen year old right now." Mikey snapped, almost laughing a little.

"And you're not?" Ray raised his eyebrows at that.

"I never said I wasn't." Mikey shrugged, again leaning closer to Ray, but again, of course,  _no homo_.

"Of course." Ray chuckled to himself, vaguely amused.

"But... we're both being ridiculous about this, yeah, that's for sure." Mikey added, his cheeks flushing a wonderfully flattering shade of red.

"Yeah..." Ray continued, meeting Mikey's gaze; the two stumped on just how to approach this, this  _mess_.

And Mikey seemed to zone out for a minute; his eyes fixated upon the corner of the room and a figure he may or may not have caught a glimpse of for just a second, and with his heart hammering in his chest, Mikey was holding on to words uttered in a dream for dear life, because if Pete was right, then he  _had_  to do this, and it wasn't like he didn’t want to... he just... he was too scared and he couldn't quite get the words out.

Of course, no one had ever said that it had to be spoken; there were other forms of conveying emotion, of course, weren't they?

And within a few seconds, Mikey had resulted to  _fuck_   _it_ , because what little else was there possibly left for the two of them?

And with Mikey's lips pressed against Ray's, the weight seemed to be sprung off Mikey's shoulders immediately, and in fact, even as he pulled away, the world physically seemed to be just a little brighter.

"Sorry... I... I'm not good with words." He added, moments later, perhaps as an afterthought.

"I think that was better than words." Ray added, wholeheartedly, a few moments later, a smile almost stuck to his lips as he glanced into the distance momentarily. "So this is it? We're  _boyfriends_  now?"

Mikey smiled, the whole idea making him blush like hell, but, "yeah."

And then suddenly, Mikey was okay, and he didn't even have to lie.

-

"Hear me out." Bert kicked his foot out to keep the door from closing, and Frank instantaneously felt like shooting himself. "I'm serious, Frank, I just want to set this right."

"Set what right?" Frank exclaimed, glaring Bert down, and becoming all the more eager to see if he could just slam this door shut regardless, even if it resulted in breaking Bert's foot in the process, because what would it matter? Frank didn't give a fuck.

"The whole thing with us and Gee, and... I want to tell you my side of the story because there's no point in me lying to you, is there? If I was lying then surely I'd want Gee for myself, and I wouldn't be even trying here, so come on, Frank,  _please_ , just let me in, let me  _try_." And Frank was tempted, oh so fucking tempted, but he wasn't going to let himself fuck up again.

"No, fuck off - I don't want anything to do with either of you anymore." And Frank's words shook a little like he didn't quite mean it, which, of course, was true.

"That's not true." And the way Bert looked him dead in the eye as he said so had Frank's facade tumbling down immediately. "come on, you love him, but you hate me and you hate the idea that he could have ever loved me, and I'm sorry, but at least we're both more than well aware that he doesn't anymore, so we're all good, aren't we?"

"We're not good." Frank snapped, keeping the door barely open between the two of them, because if he was being forced into having a conversation with Bert McCracken, this was in fact the only way he would ever consider going about it.

"I don't see what the issue is, Frank, look, yeah, me and Gee dated years ago, but we're not together anymore and he loves you, and you're just fucking with him and upsetting him now, and I-" Bert was cut off as Mikey appeared beside him, pulling the door fully open.

"For fuck's sake, Frank, I hate to admit it, but he's right." Mikey let out a sigh, meeting Frank's gaze as he did so, and just praying that for once, just once, Frank would let go of his stubborn nature for just enough time to see sense. "Look, Gee  _loves_  you... he... it's simple, just... why are you even doing this, Frank?"

"Because I don't trust you and him, because he fucks everyone and he  _lies_ , and I..." Frank shook his head, turning away as he felt tears on his cheeks, but making the mistake of losing his grip on the door, as the two made their way inside after him. "I love him so much, and I can't deal with that anymore."

"I'm sorry, Frank, I'm an asshole, but I want to make this up to him, because you make him happy and I can see that, and look, I swear on my fucking- hey, Frank, if you ever find Gee with me again, here's a promise, you can cut off my arm, with a hacksaw, or whatever, I'm giving you ownership of my arm here, look, just... I just want you two to be happy, okay?"

"I feel like it's kind of bad to only agree because I really want to cut your arm off." Frank admitted, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"No! That's wonderful, please agree, because I'm going to make damn sure that you can't cut my arm off, that's a  _promise_." Bert grinned, shaking Frank's hand as he did so, "can you go for my left arm, though, because I'm right handed, and like... then I actually wouldn't be able to write- not that you're  _ever_  gonna need to cut my arm off, of course."

"It's your right arm or no deal." And Frank was just fucking with him now; the prospect of attacking Bert with a saw bringing out an unexpected hopefulness in him, which was both good, and horribly bad.

"Deal." Bert shook his head in disbelief, "Gee better fucking be happy with me, like I-"

Mikey coughed in what was the least discreet manner possible, gesturing for Bert to leave.

"Sorry, I... I guess I'm done, but call him like now, will you?" Bert asked, and Frank nodded in response as the man he now legally owned the arm of made his way out of his front door.

"Gee really loves you, Frank, don't take the piss out of this, okay?" Mikey let out a sigh as he met his best friend's gaze.

"I know... I just... that was more payback for Bert, I guess... and well, either way I win, don't I? Gee doesn't cheat, we get a relationship, Gee does, I get to cut Bert McCracken's arm off and keep it as a weird trophy-"

"Please don't keep it as a trophy." Mikey begged, the colour seeming to drain from his face at the notion.

"I won't, I  _promise_." Frank wasn't very convincing however, and Mikey just hoped for everyone's sake that Gee kept his promises.

"Can I talk to you about something as well? I came to talk about Gee, but, there's something going on with me that I never told you about, and I feel kinda guilty about it if I'm honest." Mikey blushed a little.

"Okay? Go ahead, I'm listening." Frank added, not even attempting to guess what confession he'd find himself faced with as a result of this, because perhaps it was just better for his sanity that way.

"Well, Ray and I.... we're kind of dating... like properly, we had a weird kind of sex thing before, yeah? But this is... a proper thing..." Mikey let out a sigh, "it's my first proper thing since...  _him_... I... I don't... I think I'm okay, I don't think I'm going to see him anymore."

"That's great, how do you know?" Frank asked, his face lighting up into a smile as he did so, "I mean, I wouldn't have guessed Ray to be into cock, but he never showed much interest either way, so..."

"I just have a hunch, you know? I just feel good inside, honestly, Frank, I feel like everything's going to be alright, just this once."

And as God would have it, just moments later did Mikey and Frank receive a certain text message from Ryan, which did nothing more than contradict the fuck out of Mikey's prior statement.

-

Mrs Stump's visit was full of tears and voices too raw to speak, and she said very little to either Brendon or Ryan, and in fact neither of the boys blamed her; she just did as Ryan had done so much before - sit beside him, and watch the assorted beeps and the monitor of the unit keeping him alive: the boy in the coma beside her, the boy that had and always would mean the world.

And no mother deserved to see her son like this, because she'd done more than they ever had, because she'd tried to save him, she'd done what was right, even if people refused to see it as such, she'd tried to get him hope, but Patrick had run, and now the mess that was left of the aforementioned lay on anyone's head but hers.

And Ryan was sorry, but she didn't want to hear it, and not out of spite, but out of sympathy, and he had respected that, as Brendon pulled him away, and the two waited outside in the waiting room, and Brendon spoke to his boyfriend, a proper sentence for the first time in days, "this isn't your fault."

"I know." Ryan's response had been instant but meaningless, and Brendon had nodded, before getting them something from the vending machine, as they fell into hospital chairs, eyes fixated upon the ward door, waiting for Mrs Stump to return back through it.

Ryan had been still at a loss for what to say to her, and Brendon had been persistent in assuring him that it didn't matter, but Ryan was composed entirely out of anxieties and out of little reason.

Mrs Stump had hurried out in tears, with Ryan calling out after her, but never once did she turn back, and Ryan did push, he didn't want to fuck things up further, and Brendon had spoken to the doctor for him, and nodded as his face turned pale, and Ryan started to cry, even unbeknownst to the conversation shared.

"They're going to turn it off." Brendon's words had little context, but they didn't seem to need it, as the kick to the heart was already enough for Ryan, who'd broken down completely right then and right there.

And the two had sat beside him that night: Ryan managing to sleep for the first time in days as Brendon sat awake, his head elsewhere, back in the middle of nowhere, the next town over, the swing set and the mess he'd made of Dallon Weekes' life.

But Ryan wasn't to blame for Patrick's, and in much the same way he was at all at fault for Dallon's, and only in the early morning light did he realise as such.

They arrived for Patrick the following morning: friends,  _everyone_ , and it felt like his party all over again, but the occasion was all the most sombre, but Patrick seemed to speak just as little, and something like twenty people gathered around a hospital bed and said a few words, and Brendon couldn't take it, because it was Dallon in the park all over again, and he'd stormed out and broken down in tears in the hallway outside.

Ryan had stayed at Patrick's bedside, but Sarah had followed him, much despite Kitty's wishes, but it wasn't any of that nature, and it stayed as such, with little more than a hug and a smile, and words so simple yet so meaningful, "it's okay. It's going to be okay."

And she was wrong, but Sarah had one of those voices where she could tell you that you looked like a decaying mackerel but you'd still smile and feel blessed by her presence, and that was what Brendon needed, and with time, he'd made his way back inside, and he'd held Ryan's hand tight.

And again, with time, people had left the room, dwindling out in their numbers, and come something like midnight about five days since the incident, Brendon dragged his boyfriend out of a hospital chair: a hand held too tightly, tears streaming, but Brendon insistent with, "you don't need to see this."

They went home that night.

Patrick didn't.

-

Frank lay in bed, the morning after his visit to the hospital, his head kind of dizzy, and he kind of half didn't recognise Gee's room for a moment then, which was initially a bad sign, because seriously, he'd spent what? A few nights at home? God, his mum must hate him.

But of course, Frank's mother's 'relationship' with Janet was blossoming, and perhaps that was the simple answer as to why Mrs Iero could never settle down with a man - because she was very gay indeed.

The notion kind of made Frank smile, but also just a little horrified, because that was the effect thinking about your mother having sexual attraction just generally did.

"Frankie?" The voice next to him in the bed uttered: words muffled against a pillow, and fading dyed red hair contrasting against white sheets.

"Gee?" Frank responded, leaning in closer to his boyfriend, and smiling at him as the older man turned onto his side.

"I can't stop thinking about last night, you know?"

Frank nodded, "yeah.. I..." and his words seemed to freeze up in his throat... "it  _sucks_  I... I... just... Patrick was always so nice... he didn't deserve this."

"No one deserves this." Gee corrected him, letting out a sigh, "I feel like it was Pete that did it, because I don't know him like you do-...  _did_... but... I feel like he wasn't the same since Pete died, was he?"

Frank shook his head, "no, no, he really wasn't, I mean, he tried to keep his spirits up, but I feel like it was just a chain of disasters after each other for him then."

"Fucking sucks." Gee cursed, rubbing his eyes as he spoke, "I wonder if Pete would even have imagined what happened after he died- I don't mean to blame him, but... you know....?"

"They're up there in heaven together now, though, aren't they? That's a happy ending in some way then, don't you think?" Frank persisted in finding the optimistic side.

"Yeah, I guess, if you believe in heaven that is-"

"Gee, shut up, look, they're at peace now together in heaven, and that's that, and it's certainly a better alternative to feeling so upset about everything. You have to look for the positives in everything, don't you?"

"Shut up, Frank, it's too early for hippie bullshit 101." Gee groaned, leaning into his boyfriend's side, and closing his eyes once more.

"I love you." Frank uttered, moments later and with little context.

Gee opened his eyes, slightly taken by surprise, but welcoming of the gesture, and smiled at Frank, his words sincere and heartfelt, and that was more than seventeen year old Frank Iero could have ever asked for, "I love you too." And then it was spoiled only moments later with an, "get your armpit out of my face, you fucking stink, go take a shower."

"I thought you loved me."

"I do,  _smelly._ "

"Go fuck yourself."

-

Ray's back yard was perhaps the only thing that hadn't changed at all, and that was perhaps only down to the fact that it had been severely underused since the trio sat out there last summer, as Mikey fretted over Alicia Simmons and croquet, and Frank hadn't even met Gee yet, and Ray, well, Ray was nowhere near as fucked up.

Perhaps it had been good back then, but what was there to say that it couldn't be good now too?

And perhaps that what kept Frank smiling, away from the two like before; Mikey having taken to trying to impress Ray with his amazing croquet skills this time, and okay, it was kind of cute, but more so hilarious, but whatever.

Frank was miles away, part of him still in bed with Gee, part of in the present, and part of him still sat here last summer, utterly unaware of what mess was to come.

He wondered what would have happened if he could have turned back time and tried it all again, and just whether he could have possibly saved those lives, and kept those hearts unbroken, but perhaps life was less about reflection and wallowing in self pity, and more so about moving on and recovering.

One good thing had come of all this, at least; he had a boyfriend now, a beautiful boyfriend who maybe drank too much, and fucked up too much, a boy who didn't look much like a 'boy', who lived with an asshole and took too many drugs, but Frank reckoned he could never care for anyone else nearly as much.

This was love, and Frank was reluctant to admit it to himself, but there was no other word for it.

And his head was buzzing and fucked over with the text from his mum just an hour or two ago; her and Janet were getting married. Frank laughed as he began to count just how many wedding dresses his mother had been through, but he had this odd little feeling that this one would indeed last.

And for all these funerals he'd been too, they deserved a wedding now; they deserved happiness, and really Frank just wanted his mother to be happy, even if lovely Janet from work was about to become his step mother. Frank didn't mind, of course, and it wasn't even like he spent an excess of time at home at all, was it?

He wondered what Janet would think of Gee.

He wondered what Gee would think of Janet.

He wondered what everyone would think when Gee turned up to this wedding in a dress, because he  _would_ , and by absolutely no means was Frank complaining, in fact, it was something he was looking forward to, but it did amuse him slightly.

Gee'd drink too much champagne and the two would perhaps stumble home at something like three in the morning, and then they'd cuddle and sleep till noon, and Mikey would get pissed off because there was nothing to eat, and go to Ray's instead, and Bert would be on the back porch, smoking,  _something_ , and it would all be okay.

Because this was so different to the okay that had been last summer, but perhaps this was just him learning that there wasn't one solid definition of happiness; it grew and changed over time, as you did too, and perhaps this back yard last summer and thoughts of Alicia and croquet and Frank's suppressed homosexuality wouldn't make him feel okay at all anymore.

But that had been normal.

But perhaps there was always room for the new normal, even if that new normal was watching your two best friends have a minor make out session as one held a croquet mallet- okay,  _no_ , that'd never be normal, but Frank knew he'd find himself getting used to it regardless.

Because Mikey had started smiling again, and he'd missed Ray, and Gee was comfortable with himself, and his mother was happy, and everything seemed to be okay, even for Bob and Alicia and god knows where they'd gotten too, but that was it for them.

And Frank could sit there and mourn Pete, Dallon, and Patrick, or he could sit there and smile, because they'd been loved, they are loved, and they will be loved, and maybe just now, right now, he could close his eyes and not want to shut the world out forever.

And Frank did indeed wonder just what Mikey would have said if you'd told him last summer that the girl he was infatuated with would run off with a drug dealer who was nine years older than her with no real life plans, but he'd still be happy, and so would she, and so would the drug dealer, and that he was in fact dating his best friend with the curly hair.

Mikey from last summer would have probably punched you in the face, and Frank was counting on that.

-

END

-


End file.
